TTHE HE
SIMPLEST SIMPLEST
BOOK BOOK
EVER EVER
WRITTENWRITTEN
Keysa Luna
* to orange-pill: (verb) / tu’ ȯr-inj-‘pil/
: the act of explaining bitcoin in such a way that a
pre-coiner gets it, and becomes a bitcoiner!
1 bitcoin = 100,000,000 satoshis
2nd Edition
Includes a section on Nostr
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
Second Edition, July 2024, Keysa Luna
First Edition, March 2022, Keysa Luna
Cover and interior design by Keysa Luna
Cover photo by Vallota from Pixabay.com
Title graphics by @Asanoha_gold :: sovereignremnant.com
Nostr logo by sovrynmatt@nostrplebs.com
Independently Published
Printed in the USA
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
AttributionNonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0
International License.
This means you are free to:
Share: Copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt: Remix, transform, and build upon the material
Under the following terms:
Attribution - You must give appropriate credit , provide a link to the license, and
indicate if changes were made . You may do so in any reasonable
manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you
or your use.
NonCommercial - You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
ShareAlike - If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must
distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTSTABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Why We Need ...........................................1
2.
Fixes This ................................................32
3. What Is
? .................................................36
4. How Does
Work? ..................................... 73
5. A Word On The Lightning Network .............................88
6. How To
.................................................... 92
7. On Privacy ................................................................. 104
8. Dispelling
Fud .......................................108
9. Why
Only? .............................................123
10. Satoshi’s Numbers ..................................................127
11. Resources for the
Rabbit Hole ..
...........133
12.
Community Projects ............................138
13.
Induced Ponderings ............................139
14. A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto .......................................145
White Paper ..................................14915. The
iv
17. Why We Need Nostr .......................................... 161
16. What is Nostr? ................................................... 160
18. How Does Nostr Work? ...................................... 162
19. How To Nostr ..................................................... 165
20. Key Management ....................................................... 166
21. Nostr Resources .................................................... 167
22. Nostr Clients/Apps ................................................ 168
23. Join Us! ....................................................................... 169
cont.
v
for all our children
with thanks to Satoshi and the cypherpunks
I love the simple life,
I love nature, I love being barefoot,
I love profound conversation that sparks creativity,
connection and inspiration.
I love freedom.
And, I love bitcoin.
Love is a big word, bitcoin is worthy of big love.
Its existence is a point of bright light in this most
challenged time in human existence.
I wrote this book in the hopes of making bitcoin, and the
reasons we need it, more accessible to more seekers.
This book is a starting point, into what I, and many others,
have discovered is a phenomenally endless, life-changing
and beautiful rabbit hole!
May you be orange-pilled, may you be free,
and may you be well enriched by the journey!
738922
vi
As I submit this 2nd Edition for print,
I reflect on the process of writing, editing, updating,
fact-checking and, most importantly,
adding the new section on Nostr,
and I am in awe.
In awe of all of you, orange-pilled, purple-pilled
and yet-to-be,
all on this journey with me,
as we march forward,
resolute in our mission to continue the work
of the cypherpunks,
the freedom lovers, the visionaries,
those who looked ahead,
who understood both the power and the danger
of the digital world left unchecked,
and who sought, and still seek, to
write the code we all need,
to live into a future of freedom.
It is up to us to use it.
Let us proceed together apace.
Onward.
851522
Remember: Don’t Trust, Verify
And always DYOR: Do Your Own Research!
vii
Note: Everything presented in this little book is up
for debate, discussion, updates and corrections!
As with all things in life, there are numerous view-
points on bitcoin, nostr, their future, and every
other aspect of them both.
Lively commentary is streamed 24/7 on nostr and
twitter that bounces between confusing and
clarifying!
This entire ecosystem is an emergent, grassroots,
messy, fascinating unfolding! It is by far the largest
global experiment ever undertaken, with people of
every race, religion, class and persuasion engaging
permissionlessly together, to discover a new way
forward.
If you are inspired by such a movement, you will very
likely find yourself falling down the rabbit hole with
the rest of us!
Heres to open minds and open hearts along the
way…
viii
I’ve developed a new open source P2P
e-cash system called Bitcoin. It’s
completely decentralized, with no central
server or trusted parties, because
everything is based on crypto proof
instead of trust. Give it a try, or take a
look at the screenshots and design paper:
Download Bitcoin v0.1 at
http://www.bitcoin.org
~ Satoshi Nakamoto 2009-02-11 22:27:00 UTC
Posted on metzdowd.com, an early
cryptography mailing list
1
WHY WE NEED WHY WE NEED
WE NEED WE NEED
BECAUSE MONEY IS BROKENBECAUSE MONEY IS BROKEN
The root problem with conventional
currency is all the trust that’s required
to make it work. The central bank must
be trusted not to debase the currency,
but the history of at currencies is full
of breaches of that trust. Banks must be
trusted to hold our money and transfer
it electronically, but they lend it out
in waves of credit bubbles with barely a
fraction in reserve. We have to trust them
with our privacy, trust them not to let
identity thieves drain our accounts.
~ Satoshi Nakamoto 2009-02-11
The fiat money system is broken (always has been).
It is not sustainable (never has been).
There is no way to fix it (never will be)
2
THE (NOT) GOLD STANDARDTHE (NOT) GOLD STANDARD
Many people still believe that money is backed by
gold.
It is not.
It has not been backed by gold since 1971, when
President Nixon unilaterally took the world off the
gold standard (the Nixon Shock).
See wtfhappenedin1971.com to get a clear picture
of the damage this did.
Fun Fact: The World Economic Forum was formed in 1971.
Cha
rt showing Consumer Price Index inflation (red line) vs
the purchasing power of the US dollar (black line) since 1971.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://
fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCSL, June 9, 2024.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
3
Why We Need
FIAT: (noun) /ˈː.æt/
: an authoritative or arbitrary order : DECREE
: an authoritative determination : DICTATE
: a command or act of will that creates something without
or as if without further effort
~ merriam-webster.com/dictionary
FIAT : from Lati
n fieri «to be made, come into being»
Fiat is money that has value only because the gov-
ernment says (decrees) that it does.
Therefore people (have to) believe it does.
Even if they don’t believe fiat has value, by law they
are forced to use it and to accept it as payment for
goods and services.
Fiat money is printed/created out of thin air.
These days about 5% of all dollars are printed as
cash.
The other 95% is digitally created by banks entering
numbers into a computer when they issue loans.
It costs only a few cents for the Bureau of
Engraving and Printing to produce a $100 bill…
~ American Economist, Barry Eichengreen
4
Scott Pelley of NBC ’60 Minutes’: Fair to say you
simply ooded the system with money?
Fed Chair Jerome Powell: Yes. We did.
That’s another way to think about it. We did.
Pelley: Where does it come from?
Do you just print it?
Powell: We print it digitally. So as a central bank, we
have the ability to create money digitally. And we do that
by buying Treasury Bills or bonds for other government
guaranteed securities. And that actually increases the
money supply. We also print actual currency and we
distribute that through the Federal Reserve banks.
~ CNBC ’60 Minutes’ Interview, May 17, 2020
Two months after the onset of the C*vid-19 lockdown
There’s really no limit to what we can do
with these lending programs that we have.
~ Fed Chair Jerome Powell
March 18, 2020 on CBS News
Ye
s, there is an i
nfinite amount of cash in the Federal
Reserve. We will do whatever we need to do to make
sure there’s enough cash in the banking system.
~ Neel Kashkari , President of the Minneapolis Fed
March 23, 2020, CBS '60 Minutes'
The ‘we’ here is five people voting on changes t
monetary policy within the Federal Reserve system
during FOMC meetings. 5 out of 330,000,000.
That’s all it takes to change US monetary policy.
~ @MartyBent, F
ounder of TFTC.io
Forbes Article, March 18, 2020
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
5
Why We Need
FROM THE HORSE’S MOUTH OF OLDEFROM THE HORSE’S MOUTH OF OLDE
The bank hath benet of interest on all monies
that it creates out of nothing.
~ William Paterson, 1694
Founder of the Bank of England
All of the perplexities, confusion, and distress in America arises,
not from the defects of the Constitution or Confederation,
not from the want of honor or virtue,
so much as from downright ignorance of
the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.
~ John Adams
2nd President of the United States, 1797-1801
I believe that banking institutions are more
dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.
Already they have raised up a money aristocracy
that has set the government at defiance.
The issuing power should be taken from the banks, and
restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.
~ Thomas Jefferson
3rd President of the United States, 1801-1809
While boasting of our noble deeds were careful to conceal the ugly
fact that by an iniquitous money system we have nationalized a
system of oppression which, though more refined, is not
less cruel than the old system of chattel slavery.
~Horace Greeley
US Congressman 1848-49
Founder of The New York Tribune
6
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is
absolute master of all industry and commerce…
when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one
way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have
to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.
~ James A. Garfield
20th
President of the United States, Mar-Sept.1881
Assassinated in 1881
There today exists uncontrolled in the hands of a set of men
a power to make dollars from nothing.
~ Thomas W. Lawson, Author 'Frenzied Finance', 1905
I was as secretive - indeed, as furtive - as any conspirator.
Discovery, we knew, simply must not happen, or else all our time
and effort would be wasted. If it were to be exposed that our
particular group had got together and written a banking bill, that
bill would have no chance whatever of passage by Congress.
~ Frank A.Vanderlip
President of the National City Bank of New York
(forerunner of Citi Bank)
~ Writing in 1935 of the secretive meeting that took place on
Jekyll Island in 1910, to draft the bill that was passed as
the Federal Reserve Act in 1913.
This (Federal Reserve) Act establishes the most gigantic trust on
earth. When the President (Woodrow Wilson) signs the Bill, the
invisible government of the Monetary Power will be legalised…
The worst legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated
by this banking and currency Bill.
~ Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr.
US Congressman 1907-1917
7
Why We Need
I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country.
A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit.
Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation,
therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men.
We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most
completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized
world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a
government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a
government by the opinion and duress of
a small group of dominant men.
~ Woodrow Wilson
28
th
President of the United States, 1913-1921
6 years after passing the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.
The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know,
that a nancial element in the large centers
has owned the government of the U.S. since
the days of Andrew Jackson.
~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
32
nd
President of the United States in a letter written
on Nov. 21, 1933 to Colonel E. Mandell House
It [the depression] was not accidental.
It was a carefully contrived occurrence….
The international bankers sought to bring about
a condition of despair here so that they might
emerge as the rulers of us all.
~ Congressman Louis T. McFadden,
Assassinated in 1936
Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee
Each and every time a bank makes a loan,
new bank credit is created - new deposits
- brand new money.
~ Graham F.Towers
Gov of the Central Bank of Canada, 1934-55
8
If there were no debts in our money system,
there wouldn’t be any money
~ Marriner Eccles,
1941, Gov. of the Fed
I have never yet had anyone who could, through the
use of logic and reason, justify the Federal government
borrowing the use of its own money…
I believe the t
ime will come when people will
demand that this be changed.
I believe the time will come in this country when
they will actually blame you and me and
everyone else connected with the Congress
for sitting idly by and permitting
such an idiotic system to continue.
~ Wright Patman
US Congressman 1928-1976
Chairman, Committee on Banking and Currency 1963-1975
When you or I write a check, there must be sufcient funds in our
account to cover the check, but when the Federal Reserve writes a
check there is no bank deposit on which that check is drawn. When
the Federal Reserve writes a check, it is creating money.
~ Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
'Putting It Simply', 1984
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
9
Why We Need
THE FEDERAL RESERVETHE FEDERAL RESERVE
The Fed is the ‘independent’ central bank of the
US. It was created in 1913 with the passing of the
Federal Reserve Act.
It has a unique structure, part private and part
government.
It is supposed to be a politically independent,
non-partisan entity within the government.
While the Fed Board of Governors is appointed by the
President and confirmed by Congress, the
decisions of the Fed do not need to be ratified
by anyone.
It consists of:
The Federal Reserve Board of Governors
12 Federal Reserve Banks
The Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC),
which is the monetary policy-making body.
Th
e Fed is responsible for:
Overseeing US monetary policy, promoting employ-
ment and stable prices.
Regulating and supervising banking and financial
institutions.
Providing payments services to financial institutions.
Promoting consumer protection and community
development.
10
A NOA NOTE ON THE FED CHAIRTE ON THE FED CHAIR
The Chair of the Federal Reserve is also:
Chairs the Federal Open Market Committee
(FOMC), which decides on the direction of US
monetary policy (for eg: QE, interest rate hikes)
A member of the International Monetary Fund,
the IMF
A member of the Bank for International
Settlements, the BIS (the bank of central banks).
The US finance minister of the G-7
The US finance minister of the G-20
A whole lot of power for one person.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
11
Why We Need
FRACTIONAL RESERVE BANKING, FRACTIONAL RESERVE BANKING,
INTEREST & LOANSINTEREST & LOANS
Fractional Reserve banking: Until March 2020, banks
were required to hold a reserve of 10%, and could
loan out 90%.
Since March 2020, there is no reserve required, allow-
ing banks to issue unlimited loans.
A loan is debt-based money, and you are required to
pay interest on the loan.
Fun Fact 1: The money to pay the interest on the
loan is NOT created by the banks.
Fun Fact 2: It is NEVER created.
Fun Fact 3: There is NOT ENOUGH money in the
world to pay back all the loans + the interest due
on those loans.
Fun Fact 4: There never will be!
12
A NOTE ON THE PETRO DOLLARA NOTE ON THE PETRO DOLLAR
One could say that until 1971 the dollar was backed
by gold, and since 1974 it has been backed by oil,
and thus by default, the US Military.
In 1974 the US and Saudi Arabia entered into bilat-
eral agreements to price the sale of oil in US dollars.
Since then, most global oil sales have been settled in
US dollars.
This has contributed greatly to the dollar becoming
the strongest currency in the world.
It has thus been artificially propped up, even during
times when it would normally have struggled.
Since late in 2022, a number of countries have
begun to trade in currencies other than the US
dollar.
It is very possible that this could be the beginning of
the end of the petro dollar. What happens next
remains to be seen…
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
13
Why We Need
ON QE (QUANTITATIVE EASING)ON QE (QUANTITATIVE EASING)
Quantitative Easing is considered an ‘unconventional
monetary policy’ used by Central Banks to ‘stimulate
the economy’, whereby the Fed buys government
bonds and other government securities.
It was first used by Japan between 2001-2006.
Following that, the US, UK, and the Eurozone used
QE during the 2008 financial crisis
Since then, the only time the US has not had a QE
program was between 2014-2019.
As seen below, critics contend that QE
overwhelmingly benefits the already-wealthy.
Credit: @RudyHavenstein on Twitter
14
CYCLESCYCLES
In all of nature, there are cycles, natural ebbs and
flows, expansions and contractions.
This contributes to an overall, over-time, balance
and sustainability of the whole interconnected
system, of all life on earth.
The debt-based, fiat currency system ignores the
wisdom of natural cycles, and instead is based on,
and 100% reliant for its survival upon, unparalleled
and unmitigated growth, in order to continue
servicing its debts.
In nature, this is cancer.
In ‘the economy’, this unnatural trajectory is further
supported by the government bailing out failing
banks and large companies, rather than allowing them
to fold, and be recycled into something new, some-
thing healthier.
The short-sightedness of bailing out failing compa-
nies is putting the whole economy at risk. In essence,
it is just kicking the can down the road, and the inev-
itable turmoil that lies ahead is likely to be far, far
more intense than if natural cycles were allowed to
play out.
We are indebted to Satoshi Nakamoto, and to the
cypherpunks before and after him, for having the
vision, foresight, determination and skill to provide
a lifeboat to carry us to new shores.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
15
Why We Need
Once we realize the gift that this is, it is up to us to
jump on board, with full hearts and clear minds, to
take the trip and build a new world with the Money
of Peace.
Bitcoin fixes the money, it is up to us to fix the rest.
And, to be clear, by having the money xed, a LOT
of other things will be fixed, by default
The main one being that large-scale, government-ini-
tiated, kinetic war will no longer be profitable, or pos-
sible, without the support of the people.
Additionally, there will naturally be less consumption,
along with a switch over to real-value goods and ser-
vices, free markets, real savings, & demonetization of
housing and real estate, that was never meant to
be monetized in the first place.
SEE: Bitcoin Fixes This, page 32
16
WE NEED WE NEED
BECAUSE INFLATION IS THEFTBECAUSE INFLATION IS THEFT
2024 FRED chart showing the declining purchasing power of the
dollar since the formation of the Federal Reserve in
1913. The cumulative rate of inflation since 1913 is around
3.067%. All central bank fiat currencies around the world
are following a similar rate of decline.
The more money that is created out of thin air,
the more all money loses value/purchasing power.
This is called inflation.
Inflation is time-theft, literally. The value of your
time is stolen when you save it in a currency that is
inflated, debased and manipulated.
Inflation is also a hidden tax.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
17
Why We Need
This time-theft and tax has affected all other
countries’ fiat currencies as well, since they have all
been pegged to the US dollar, as it has been the
world reserve currency since the Bretton Woods
agreement in 1944.
In the USA, a 2% annual inflation rate is written into
the Federal Reserve mandate.
This means that you are GUARANTEED to be able
to buy 2% LESS with the same $20 bill each year.
In March 2024, the annual inflation rate was 3.5%,
(a lot more than 2%, which means you lost 3.5% of
your purchasing power between March 2023 and
March 2024.
Put another way, this means that on average, things
went up in price by 3.5%.
If inflation was measured accurately, like it was
done until the early 1980s, it would actually
be closer to 10% in 2024.
When looked at by category, one sees that
inflation is a whole lot worse than 3.5% in many
categories over the past year.
When one looks at one's rent, grocery bills, gas
prices, almost anything one buys, it is quite clear that
inflation is rampant in every sector.
18
Average Inflation over the
past 50 years in the US:
Average Cost 1971 2024 % Increase
Salary $9,400 $59,400 532%
House $23,400 $513,000 2,092%
Gallon of Gas $0.36 $4.17 1,058%
New Car $3,400 $47,000 1,282%
College Degree $1,400 $26,000 1,757%
Basket Groceries $20 $210 950%
Electricity/kWh $0.02 $0.15 650%
True Story:
~ A house was bought in 1976 for $58,000.
~ When accounting for ‘official’ inflation, this would be
$279,000 in 2022 dollars.
~ In 2022 the same house was valued at $2.09 million.
~ Ponder on that…
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
Fiat currency is disinformation.
What information does a $10 bill convey?
The 10 is a numerator of a fraction with
the denominator missing.
10 out of what?
The 10 says nothing without a known
and stable denominator.
~ @bitlany
19
Why We Need
As inflation increases, your savings (if you are lucky
enough to have savings), lose value.
Over time, they lose A LOT of value.
If you started saving $100/month today, with the
best available interest rate of 0.05%:
In 30 years you would have saved $84,019.
When adjusted for the FED’s mandated 2% inflation
In 30 years your savings would have an effective
purchasing power of just $46,384.
Adjusting for todays inflation of 3.5%:
Your $84,019
worth of savings would have the
purchasing power of just
$11,037
in 30 years!
In effect this means that approximately six out of
seven hours of your work have been stolen = Time
Theft.
20
Another way to look at it is the following:
In 1971, the cost of a house = 2.5 times an average
annual salary.
In 2024, the cost of a house = 8.6 times an
average annual salary.
In 1971, a new car cost about 1/3 of an average salary.
In 2024, a new car cost over 3/4 of an average salary.
I trust that it is now clear that
inflation
does *not*
work in your favor.
N
o
te: All of these numbers are averages, and variable based
on
many
factors.
The
point
remains, inflation
is
a
hidden
tax
and is time-theft on our real labor and production.
Hard money fixes this.
Bitcoin is hard money.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
21
Why We Need
WE NEED WE NEED
TO REPLACE THE CENTRALLY TO REPLACE THE CENTRALLY
CONTROLLED, MANIPULATED, DEBT-CONTROLLED, MANIPULATED, DEBT-
BASED ECONOMYBASED ECONOMY
I don’t believe we shall ever have a good money again,
before we take the thing out of the hands of government,
that is, we can’t take them violently out of the hands of
government, all we can do is by some sly roundabout way
introduce something they can’t stop.
~ Friedrich Hayek, 1984
Austrian Economist, Philosopher and Author, 1899-1992
Graph showing exponential M1 Money Supply increase from
$4 trillion in March 2020 to over $18 trillion in June 2024.
Blow your mind here: https://usdebtclock.org/
22
FRED Graph showing Total Public Debt 1970-2024 in the US.
Global debt, measured by the Institute of
International Finance, now totals $303 TRILLION.
This is our planet on debt-based at.
By the way, global GDP is only $84 trillion.
~ Nik Bhatia, Author of ‘Layered Money’, 2021
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
45% of all the US dollars in existence were
printed between April 2020-Jan 2022!
Printed out of thin air that is, remember?
Fiat money is centrally controlled by the state, and
the supply is easily manipulated.
It took 205 years for the US National Debt to
reach $1 trillion. (1776 > 1981)
It took just 33 more years for the US National Debt
to reach $34 trillion! (1981 > 2024)
23
Why We Need
For reference:
If you have: You can spend $1/second
$1 Million for 11 days = 11 days
$1 Billion for 11,680 days = 32 years
$1 Trillion for 11,680,000 days = 32,000 years!
We are all at the mercy of those who have the power
to decide when to print more, and what interest rates
to charge.
If the Fed raises the interest rates, then getting a
loan for a house or a car becomes suddenly more
expensive, which slows down spending, leading to
stagflation
If they keep the rates artificially low, we enter a
period of depression
Allowing the central bank to create the financia
‘weather’, takes away our freedom to let the mar-
ket decide what is of value, and what is not.
In addition, when they bail out banks and corpora-
tions, they artificially prop up the economy. It is only
a matter of time before the house of cards falls.
The original argument for having a central bank was
that there needed to be a Lender of Last Resort when
the economy wobbled.
24
This has turned into the central bank being a Ruler of
First Resort, with unparalleled, unelected, ultimately
authoritarian power.
All money is political, except for Bitcoin.
Fiat currencies, banking instruments, ntech credits,
other cryptocurrencies, and even gold are all controlled
by governments, corporations, or small groups.
Having an exception will prove very useful
as we head into the future.
~ Alex Gladstein @gladstein
Chief Strategy Ofcer for the Human Rights Foundation
Bitcoin links together 8 billion people, links together a
hundred million companies, it synchronizes the world
across political jurisdictions, and it returns rationality to
the entire nancial system, and it returns freedom and
property rights to the entire human race.
~Michael Saylor
CEO Microstrategy
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
25
Why We Need
WE NEED WE NEED
TO BANK THE UNBANKEDTO BANK THE UNBANKED
For 953 million people in 20 countries with weakening
currencies, Bitcoin represents something greater than a
treasury asset. For them, its more like an ark of
encrypted energy to escape the flood.
~ Michael Saylor
CEO of Microstrategy
As of 2024, approximately 25% of the adults in
the world are unbanked, about 1.4 billion people!
This means they have no access to banking services
and cannot use ATM’s, debit cards, credit cards or
checks.
In addition, they are not able to get loans to start
a business, to buy a car or a house etc.
Sending and receiving money, or cashing checks, is
expensive.
They have to use money-transfer and check cashing
services like Western Union, that charge high rates
and take time to process.
It is especially expensive for people sending money
home to their families in other countries (remittances),
which can cost up to 10%, or 12% via a bank.
26
It is expensive and time-consuming for those receiv-
ing remittances, as they need to pay for transport and
go to the money-transfer office, often far from where
they live, to get the money their family member sent.
Oftentimes it is not safe for them to travel to these
offices.
Bitcoin, over the Lightning Network, provides an
instant solution to these problems now!
#bitcoin xes this
When has a technology that empowers
people ever been stopped?
~ Jeff Booth
A
uthor: The Price of Tomorrow
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
27
Why We Need
WE NEED WE NEED
TO HELP PEOPLE ESCAPE TYRANNY TO HELP PEOPLE ESCAPE TYRANNY
AND CURRENCY COLLAPSEAND CURRENCY COLLAPSE
As we have seen, over the past couple of years,
governments can and do freeze the bank
accounts of those they disagree with.
This shows that, in essence, your money in the bank
is nothing more than an IOU that can be stolen
from you at any time.
In addition, when inflation runs rampant, as we are
curre
ntly seeing in 2024 in Venezuela (283%), Sudan
(63%), Lebanon (212%), Syria (79%),
Argentina (161%), Zimbabwe (47%), Turkey
(64%) and more, peoples life-savings are
vaporized, sometimes overnight, and there is
nothing they can do about it.
For people experiencing any of the above, bitcoin
becomes a real, immediate solution to
an otherwise untenable problem.
Considering that both tyranny and inflation is
on the rise in many places, one would be wise
to hedge against them by acquiring bitcoin now.
28
WE NEED WE NEED
TO AVOID CBDCSTO AVOID CBDCS
You may have heard that central banks are starting
to create CBDCs, Central Bank Digital Currencies.
In May 2020,
35 countries were exploring this option.
In March 2022, 87 countries were actively looking
at, or had already launched, a pilot CBDC.
As of this writing in June 2024, 134 countries
representing 98% of global GDP are in the
research, development, pilot or launch stage.
CBDCs are very similar to the electronic money
you see in your online bank account, except that
by being natively digital, they are programmable
and 100% controllable.
A key difference with CBDCs is
central banks would have absolute control..
~Agustin Carstens
General Mgr, BIS - Bank for International
Settlements (The bank of all banks)
This means the government can program an expi-
ration date on your money, forcing you to spend it
before it expires.
www.atlanticcouncil.org/cbdctracker/
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
29
Why We Need
They can also program other things into it, like only
allowing it to be spent at certain shops, websites or
jurisdictions, and not at others.
They could link it to: your credit score, your health
pass, digital ID and other social scores.
They can program any restrictions they see fit, based
on your specific score in one area, or on your
‘overall score’, or on what they deem the
‘economy’ needs.
In addition, they will be able to surveil every single
thing you do with your money.
We don’t know whos using a $100 bill today and we
don’t know whos using a 1,000 peso bill today.
The key difference with the CBDC is the central bank
will have absolute control on the rules and regulations
that will determine the use of that expression of
central bank liability, and also we will have
the technology to enforce that.
~Agustin Carstens
GM, BIS - Bank for International Settlements
Note: Saying “that expression of central bank lia-
bility” implies that your value, your life force, stored
as money, is actually ‘owned’ by the central bank.
30
WE NEED WE NEED
TO SAVE THE GARDENTO SAVE THE GARDEN
Bitcoin plucks out, at the root, THE biggest issue we
face, the Fiat Lie.
This is the lie of corrupted fiat currency, usury
and all
that comes with it to steal your time, while greatly
enriching those closest to the money printer.
The Fiat Lie is like a giant monster weed in your gar-
den, sucking all the nutrients from the soil, killing
all the mycelium, and blocking the sunlight so that
the other plants cannot thrive, and are struggling to
survive.
Suddenly when this noxious, monster Fiat Lie weed
is gone, Truth enters!
All the plants (the people) can begin to recover.
The soil (being peoples’ creativity, real goods and
services) can regenerate.
The mycelium (being authentic connection between
people) will regrow.
And the sunlight (unmediated life force) will shine
down once again upon us all!
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
31
Why We Need
WE NEED WE NEED
TO FIX THE WORLDTO FIX THE WORLD
This is not a joke. #bitcoinfixesthis is a running meme
for good reason.
While this might sound somewhat ‘grandiose’,
let me
explain. When one considers the ‘way things are’,
one can see that ‘something is very wrong’.
Rampant destruction, environmental degradation,
splintered families and communities, loss of cul-
tures, languages, traditions, poverty increasing, mas-
sive wealth concentrating in the hands of the (very)
few, over-consumption, infinite money backing
politicians, lack of food and clean water for millions,
ever-increasing obesity and auto-immune disorders,
seemingly endless wars …
One would think that with the exponential growth in
NGOs, non-profit organizations, charitable founda-
tions and so-called government-backed institutions,
these issues would be getting less severe.
Instead, they are largely becoming more severe.
32
FIXES THIS FIXES THIS
FINANCIAL INCLUSIVITYFINANCIAL INCLUSIVITY
With bitcoin, everyone has access to the same
financial system, with the same rules for everyone.
No loopholes or back doors
or special deals
for anyone.
Everyone has the potential to be compensated for the
value they provide with the same real money,
created and maintained with the same rules.
Bitcoin is accessible to anyone, anywhere with
an internet connection.
ADDING VALUE TO THE WORLDADDING VALUE TO THE WORLD
Bitcoin incentivizes people to add real value to the
community and the marketplace, as this is the only
way to make more money.
If one is satisfied with less, one still benefits by work-
ing for a fair wage, and when one saves, those sav-
ings maintain their value over time.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
33
Fixes This
FIXES THIS FIXES THIS
ENVIRONMENTENVIRONMENT
Sound money with a hard-capped supply creates a
very different dynamic to the one created by the
debt-based, unlimited money-printing which we
see taking place today.
Instead of an unstoppable drive to consume
ever
more, in a race to the bottom to pay
compounding interest rates on loans and debt
that will ultimately never get paid off, bitcoin
provides an off-ramp to a world where a low-time
preference is sought after.
This is a net benefit to people, plants and animals!
Rampant environmental destruction is replaced
with less consumption, less waste, and a
considered approach to production,
where the
market decides what holds true value, and
things are therefore built to last.
34
FIXES THIS FIXES THIS
WARWAR
The unlimited printing of the fiat monetary
system is what makes ‘forever-wars’ possible and
profitable.
Since the people are mostly in the dark about how
war spending works, or where the money for war
comes from, there is little to no accountability on
the part of government. Wars can drag on for
years in remote places, with no real oversight.
Starting with Vietnam, wars have become ‘credit
card wars’ (h/t @AlexGladstein), since the
government borrows money to fund the wars, and
then borrows more money to pay the interest on
the initial loans... rinse and repeat.
Since there would be no undue profits to be made,
government officials and corporations would not be
incentivized to promote or engage in war as a
viable option.
Efforts would gr
eatly increase to find ways to
come to peaceful, low-cost resolutions instead.
On a bitcoin standard, it would require the
people of a country to be willing to help pay for
a war.
They would likely only do so if it was
absolutely and clearly necessary, to defend their
families and country, with an end-goal in site.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
35
Fixes This
FIXES THIS FIXES THIS
TIME PREFERENCETIME PREFERENCE
High-time preference leads to personal, societal and
environmental destruction. When our money is
losing value each day, we are ‘forced’ to be
impatient and to spend it as quickly as possible,
before it loses more value.
When our time is devalued by an ever-inflating fiat
currency, we lose connection to the value of our
time.
This leads to disconnection, and an undercurrent
of stress.
Attempts to alleviate the stress, and find meaning,
are distorted and become distractions such as
over-consumption of drugs, alcohol, shopping,
porn, fast food, short attention spans, addiction
to screens/social media, impulsive decisions etc.
Sound money on the other hand, which holds its
value over time and properly measures our
contributions through our work, leads to a low-
time preference, thoughtful quality of life, with
meaningful relationships, less consumption, deeper
connection, more profound conversation, long-term
goals and increased creativity.
High Time Preference: Instant gratification, Impatience,
Short-term planning
Low Time Preference: Delayed gratification, Patience,
Long-term planning
36
WHAT IS WHAT IS ? ?
“Writing a description for this thing
for general audiences is bloody hard.
There’s nothing to relate it to.”
~ Satoshi Nakamoto 2010-07-05
Total circulation will be 21,000,000
coins. It’ll be distributed to network
nodes (miners) when they make blocks,
with the amount cut in half every 4 years.
rst 4 years: 10,500,000 coins
next 4 years: 5,250,000 coins
next 4 years: 2,625,000 coins
next 4 years: 1,312,500 coins etc...
When that runs out, the system can support
transaction fees if needed. It’s based on
open market competition, and there will
probably always be nodes willing to
process transactions for free.
~ Satoshi Nakamoto 2009-01-09
Bitcoin is freedom money… in the sense that it has
the potential to free us all from the overarching
manipulation by, and control of, the central banking
system.
In bitcoin, the monetary rules are
the same for
EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE.
Bitcoin is inclusive, in the sense that anyone with an
internet connection can participate in the network,
and has to play by the same rules.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
37
What Is ?
IS:IS:
DECENTRALIZED
TRULY SCARCE
CENSORSHIP RESISTANT
A DISTRIBUTED LEDGER
INCORRUPTIBLE
PERMISSIONLESS
AUDITABLE
TRANSPARENT
IMMUTABLE
BORDERLESS
HARD TO COUNTERFEIT
PSUEDONYMOUS
FRICTIONLESS
TRUSTLESS
PEER-TO-PEER
}
This group of five
properties distinguish
bitcoin from every
other cryptocurrency!
38
Bitcoin is decentralized.
It is run on thousands of nodes worldwide, by thou-
sands of people who don’t know each other.
No one person, government or company can ever
control it.
You can run a node too, its easy ;)
By running your own node, you increase your
privacy and help to secure the network when you
verify your own transactions.
Don’t trust. Verify.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
39
What Is ?
Bitcoin (upper case ‘B’) is a monetary network.
bitcoin (lower case ‘b’) is the currency, or mone-
tary asset, that is issued on, and runs on the Bitcoin
network.
40
Bitcoin is the great incentivizer.
The genius of Satoshi was such that in bitcoin, for
the first time, both good and bad actors are incen-
tivized to play by the rules.
“The incentive may help encourage
nodes to stay honest.
If a greedy attacker is able to assemble
more CPU proof-of-worker than all the
honest nodes, he would have to choose
between using it to defraud people by
stealing back his payments,
or using it to generate new coins.
He ought to nd it more protable to play
by the rules, such rules that favour
him with more new coins than
everyone else combined,
than to undermine the system and
the validity of his own wealth.”
~ Satoshi Nakamoto 2008-10-31
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
41
What Is ?
Bitcoin is the first digitally native money, unlike
your online checking account, which is just a
digital form of central bank fiat.
Bitcoin is decentralized digital currency.
Bitcoin has no central authority.
Bitcoin is stateless.
Consider the implications ...
Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that enables
instant payments to anyone, anywhere in the world.
Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no
central authority: transaction management and money
issuance are carried out collectively by the network.
~ Bitcoin Wiki
en.bitcoin.it
42
Bitcoin is magic internet money.
No seriously, Bitcoin is the way we are going to fix
the world.
Seriously?
Yes.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
43
What Is ?
Bitcoin is a way to transfer value
of any amount
securely
instantly (on the Lightning Network)
between any two parties
anytime
24/7
anywhere
yes, anywhere
Think about that.
With e-currency based on cryptographic
proof, without the need to trust a third
party middleman, money can be secure and
transactions eortless.
~ Satoshi Nakamoto 2009-02-11
44
Bitcoin is (almost) costless to move with certainty.
I know with 100% certainty what I am receiving.
~ Michael Saylor CEO of Microstrategy
You can send $1.13, or 46c or 359 sats or 500,000,000
sats or $1 million to anyone, anywhere, anytime
via the Bitcoin Network, or the Lightning Network
built on Bitcoin.
And no one can stop you.
Can you do that with gold, silver, USD/GBP/EUR/YEN/
CYK/ZAR or any other central bank fiat currency?
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
45
What Is ?
Bitcoin is historical. This is the first time in history that
a truly decentralized, censorship-resistant, immutable,
borderless, permissionless, and incorruptible mon-
etary system with an absolute hard cap (21 million
coins) has ever been created.
Bitcoin is as significant to decentralizing power
and increasing financial inclusion, as the invention
of the printing press, and later the World Wide
Web, was to decentralizing control of, and
increasing access to, information.
A lot of people automatically
dismiss e-currency as a lost cause
because of all the companies that failed
since the 1990’s.
I hope it’s obvious it was only the
centrally controlled nature of those
systems that doomed them.
I think this is the rst time we’re trying
a decentralized, non-trust-based system.
~ Satoshi Nakamoto 2009-02-15
46
Bitcoin is a distributed, decentralized, transparent
and immutable LEDGER OF ACCOUNT.
Anyone in the world can see who owns what, at any
given moment, and it cannot be changed.
Except the ‘who’ isn’t a name, it is an address
made up of numbers and letters.
An example of a bitcoin address:
bc1qar0srrr7xfkvy5l643lydnw9re59gtzzwf5mdq
Bitcoin is therefore pseudonymous.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
47
What Is ?
Bitcoin is
an impartial issuer of assets
a store of value
a medium of exchange
and soon to be a unit of account
as well as
the means of exchange.
It is the issuer, the gold, the cash, the debit card AND
paypal, the bank, venmo, cashapp, western union
ALL ROLLED INTO ONE!
48
Bitcoin is a record keeper that uses mathematics and
computer science, instead of bankers, bookkeepers
and accountants.
It eliminates the middlemen, banks, govts, overdraft
fees, checking account fees, limited hours of service,
potential for censorship, frozen accounts, manipula-
tion of the money supply, interest rates, the IMF,
the WEF, the BIS, brick-and-mortar buildings, ATMs,
checks, chargebacks, the petro dollar, the euro
dollar, bank seigniorage, the cantillon effect,
fractional reserve banking, visa, mastercard, amex,
western union, days of waiting for your wire transfer
to go through ...
Instead of having someone between you and the
person whose hand you want to shake, you can just
shake their hand directly.
No need to ask permission to send your own
money!
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
49
What Is ?
Put SimplyPut Simply
Bitcoin is digital property that no one can take from
you.
Owning bitcoin means owning the right to
send value
from a specific address that you control with
your private key to ANY other address you choose.
Bitcoin is a property right that is independent of
the monopoly on violence.
~ Robert Breedlove @breedlove22
50
Bitcoin is a once-in-a-species event.
The discovery of Bitcoin 15 years ago, is to
human financial freedom and sovereignty, as the
discovery of fire was to human flourishing over
500,000 years ago, and the printing
press was to
decentralizing access to human knowledge nearly
900 years ago.
Bitcoin is choice.
Bitcoin engenders sovereignty.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
51
What Is ?
Bitcoin is a true store of value.
It stores your most precious resource, your time, in
such a way that you can access it again later.
Bitcoin is like a high bandwidth conduit of energy to your
future self ... you can work today and Bitcoin will deep
freeze your energy for later use.
~ Robert Breedlove
The root of money is time
And the root of time is value
~ Guy Swann
52
Bitcoin is a timechain, literally.
Satoshi referred to the timechain many times in
his emails with the early devs.
You can measure time in blocks, since one block
is mined every ~10 minutes.
Our time is our most scarce and precious resource.
It is our literal life force.
True Money allows us to store our time.
It is the way we can acknowledge the time we ‘spent’.
We trade our time for money, which is simply a record
of our time and effort.
Bitcoin makes it possible to preserve our time such
that we have ‘access’ to it later in life, when
we are no longer able to work as we once did.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
53
What Is ?
Bitcoin is a store of value.
Bitcoin is a medium of exchange.
Bitcoin will one day
be a unit of account.
Bitcoin will one day be THE unit of account.
54
Bitcoin is scarce.
It has a hard cap of 21,000,000.
There will never be more.
Code is law here.*
* While it is ‘technically’ possible to change the
code, Satoshis genius prevents that, since increasing
(inflating) the supply would only serve to decrease the
value of all bitcoin in circulation. This therefore
incentivizes everyone to implicitly agree to maintain
the 21,000,000 hard cap supply.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
Check out timec
haincalendar.com by @TC to check
the current block height, the available supply, and
numerous other metrics with regard to the bitcoin
timechain.
55
What Is ?
Bitcoin is infinitely divisible, without debasing the
supply.
One pizza is one pizza, regardless of how small the
slices are.
It is currently divisible to the eighth
decimal: 1.00000000
There are 100,000,000 satoshis in 1 bitcoin.
1 satoshi = 0.00000001
You can buy sats (satoshis) in any amount.
56
Bitcoin is the hardest, sou
ndest money we have ever
known.
It is even sounder than gold, since gold is not easily
divisible or portable, has low velocity (moves slowly)
and is not easily verifiable
Bitcoin has the most superior monetary properties
of any asset ever known.
SOUND MONEY PROPERTIES COMPARISON CHART
NOT
E: This is a general overview, there are nuances not
addressable in a chart.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
57
What Is ?
Bitcoin is the antidote.
Attempting to ‘stabilize’ the economy with bailouts,
money printing, QE and interest rate manipulation is
like having it on artificial life support
This ‘machine’ can only go on so long, before becom-
ing more and more expensive to maintain, and less
and less sustainable, leading to a serious breakdown.
Bitcoin fixes this
Bitcoin is better money.
58
Bitcoin is anti-fragile.
And it gets more so with every attempted attack,
with every government ban, with every piece of main-
stream media FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt).
Bitcoin has never been hacked.*
Th
ough many have tried.
* Although you may have heard of
hacks, it is
the exchanges that have been hacked, not
the bitcoin protocol.
Remember:
Not your keys, not your coins.
Always withdraw your sats to your own wallet.
Best to buy peer-to-peer.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
59
What Is ?
Bitcoin is a combination of:
economic incent
ives
software engineering
time value of money
tech adoption curves
emergent phenome
na
power of decentralization
low time preference
alignment of incentives
monetary neutrality
financial activism
immutability
... all working together to create trust
in a trustless, decentralized environment,
to
support a
neutral
secure
censorship-resistant
permissionless
global
digital money and monetary network.
computer science
network protocols
electrical systems
game theory
conviction
mimetics
thermodynamics
network effects
cryptography
energy
true scarcity
60
Bitcoin is a deep rabbit hole, causing you to
question most everything you thought you knew ;)
Bitcoin is self-contained.
Bitcoin simply is.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
Bi
tcoin is. And that is enough.
~ @Beautyon
61
What Is ?
Bitcoin is a symbiotic relationship between:
Humans
and
A perfect solution to transfer and store
time/value.
Humans need bitcoin, bitcoin needs humans.
62
Bitcoin is the solution to the Byzantine Generals
problem.
This was once thought to be an unsolvable problem in
computer science.
This problem arises in decentralized systems, where
it was thought impossible to prove that message sent
= message received, since the ‘man-in-the-middle’
could be a bad actor and falsify the message.
In other words, it seemed impossible to form consen-
sus amongst a network of distributed and indepen-
dent computers.
By using a timestamp along with a cryptograph-
ically secured distributed ledger, Satoshi solved this
problem.
His solution is known as Nakamotos consensus.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
63
What Is ?
Bitcoin is the solution to the double-spend problem.
This means that when you send bitcoin, the receiver
can be sure that you actually owned the bitcoin you
sent, and, that once you sent it to them you cannot
spend those coins again by sending them to someone
else (double-spending).
Just like me giving you an orange. Once it leaves
my hands and is in your hands, I no longer have
the orange to give to someone else.
..double-spends are never accepted into the
transaction pool, so every node bears
witness to which transaction it saw rst
by working to put it into a block.
~ Satoshi Nakamoto 2010-12-09
64
Bitcoin is a bearer asset, like cash or gold, held by
the bearer (owner) directly.
This means that, once sent (given), it goes directly
to the new bearer (owner), with no middleman
(bank) needed to process the transaction.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
65
What Is ?
Bitcoin is P2P (peer-to-peer).
Bitcoin is censorship-resistant.
This means that no one has the power to hold up
or to prevent a transaction from going through to
the new bearer.
Bitcoin flows freely.
There can be no gatekeepers.
66
Bitcoin is trustless.
The root problem with conventional
currency is all the trust that’s required
to make it work. The central bank must be
trusted not to debase the currency, but
the history of at currencies is full of
breaches of that trust.
~ Satoshi Nakamoto on the importance of
Bitcoin’s trustless nature.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
67
What Is ?
Bitcoin is code.
Code is speech.
Check out github.com/bitcoin
This is currently the main bitcoin repository.
Click around to view the code, the pull requests,
the reviews, the commits, the bips (bitcoin
improvement proposals) and the developers who are
working on, maintaining and improving the
creation that is bitcoin.
68
Bitcoin is the internet of money.
When one stops to consider that everything else is
going/has gone digital, including:
m
usic
books
banking
movies
education
photos
phone calls
radio
maps
games
meetings
and the list goes on (for better or for worse)
… then one sees how it is really a logical step for
money to follow.
BUT, we need BITCOIN, NOT CBDCs!
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
69
What Is ?
SATOSHI’s GENIUSSATOSHI’s GENIUS
Bitcoin is ALL of the following:
A decentralized, distributed ledger
A payment system
And the value itself being transferred.
Outside of bitcoin, money creation (issuance), and
accounting (keeping track of money received/spent),
is centralized, and includes the following separate
layers:
Various Central Banks' issuance of money
The ledgers of account, whether written or digital
The trusted
parties who enter the numbers into
the ledgers
The trusted parties who keep the physical ledgers
safe, or who maintain the computer databases
The trusted security teams who work to prevent
hacking of the databases
With bitcoin, all these layers are folded into one!
While this might sound more centralized, Satoshis
genius made it such that the opposite is true.
It is 100% Decentralized!
70
Bitcoin has NO central point of failure.
The only way it could all be rolled into one, and be
decentralized, is that the distributed ledger is
main-tained by a voluntary, world-wide, ad hoc
group of people voluntarily mining and/or running
full nodes.
And, the incentives of the network encourage every-
one to play by the rules.
You can join us!
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
71
Bitcoin is Bitcoin is
a peaceful revolutiona peaceful revolution
72
Bitcoin is HopeBitcoin is Hope
73
HOW DOES HOW DOES WORK? WORK?
Rules not Rulers
tik-tok/
/next block
Cryptography (noun
) /krɪpˈtɑː
ɡrəfi
: the enciphering and deciphering of messages
in secret code or cipher
: the computerized encoding and
decoding of information
~ Merriam Webster Dictionary
Hashing (verb) /ˈʃɪŋ/
: a method of encryption
: the process of using a mathematical algorithm against
data to produce a numeric value (a hash digest)
that is representative of that data.
~ crsc.nist.gov
Remember:
The bitcoin ecosystem includes >>
bitcoin: the digital monetary asset
Bitcoin: the payment network of miners and nodes
1 bitcoin = 100,000,000 satoshis (sats)
Bitcoin uses proof-of-work, public-key cryptography
and peer-to-peer networking, to process
and verify
payments in a global, distributed, online ledger.
(You can buy sats, a fraction of a bitcoin)
74
We dene an electronic coin as a chain of
digital signatures. Each owner transfers
the coin to the next by digitally signing
a hash of the previous transaction and the
public key of the next owner and adding
these to the end of the coin. A payee can
verify the signatures to verify the chain
of ownership.
~ Satoshi Nakamoto
Bitcoin White Paper, Pt.2, 2008
Describing how a bitcoin transaction works
in the distributed ledger
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
75
How Does Work?
THE BITCOIN ECOSYSTEM..THE BITCOIN ECOSYSTEM..
consists of Miners, Nodes, Users, Developers
all working independently,
and simultaneously interdependently,
to enliven that which is
BITCOIN!
76
MINERSMINERS
Specialized nodes (computers called ASICS) that
‘mine’ the blocks that become part of the bitcoin
blockchain.
In so doing, they verify the validated transactions
made by users, mint new bitcoins and secure
the entire network.
USERSUSERS
You and me. All of us. The people.
Acknowledging and appreciating the value of
goods and services provided, we transact: give
and receive bitcoin, or we store it for use later, as
needed.
NODESNODES
Nodes are computers that run the bitcoin
software.
There are thousands of nodes making up the
decentralized, global, voluntary network that
validates transactions (thereby preventing
double-spending, and helping to secure the
system).
DEVELOPERS (DEVS)DEVELOPERS (DEVS)
Coders, programmers & digital authors who work
to maintain and scale the network, improve security,
privacy and user interface, and translate code into
language and visuals that the rest of us can com-
prehend and utilize.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
77
How Does Work?
A BITCOIN TRANSACTION:A BITCOIN TRANSACTION:
Ali wants to send Benji some bitcoin:
1. Ali o
pens the bitcoin wallet app on her phone and
clicks ‘Send’.
2. Benji
opens his wallet
app
and
clicks ‘Receive’
.
3. If
they
are
together:
Ali scans the QR code on the
wallet app on Benjis phone.
4. If they are not together: Ali copies and pastes the
address Benji texts her, into the address field in her
wallet.
5. Ali enters the amount to send, and hits ‘Send’.
6. A few seconds later, Benji will see the amount
pending in his wallet.
7. If it was sent through Lightning it will be confirmed
almost instantly, and is almost free.
8. If it was sent ‘onchain’ (on the Bitcoin mainchain),
it includes a small fee, and usually takes around 10
minutes to be confirmed. It can take longer,
depending on network traffic.
78
A BITCOIN TRANSACTION UNDER A BITCOIN TRANSACTION UNDER
THE HOOD: THE HOOD:
(Definitions of the terms that are in bold follow)
1. When Ali sends those sats
to Benji, the payment
transaction is broadcast to the network.
2. The transaction gets validated by nodes that
make sure Ali really has the bitcoin to send, and
that it has not previously been spent (to prevent
double-spending) .
3. Once validated by a node, it waits in the mempool
with other peoples' transactions.
4. The transactions in the mempool get added in a
block to the blockchain when a miner finds a nonce
that satisfies the difficulty algorithm.
5. Each block has a timestamp.
6. This creates immutability, and helps protect the
difficulty algorithm adjustment from being
manipulated.
7. Each block represents one confirmation for the
transactions included in it.
8. As blocks are added, on average every ten mins,
the immutability of the blockchain increases.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
79
How Does Work?
TRANSACTION ~ Sending/receiving bitcoin
A transfer of value in the form of satoshis, from
one bitcoin holder to another.
NODE ~ A ‘branch’ of the decentralized bitcoin
‘bank’. Anyone can run a node.
Nodes are computers that run the bitcoin
software.
Nodes, along with miners, users and
developers, form the peer-to-peer Bitcoin
network.
Imagine each full node as a ledger containing the
balances of every private key.
They interact, and reach consensus (agree) with
one another by accepting and validating
transactions from other nodes, along with blocks
from miners, and then relaying these onward to
other nodes.
Nodes are run by an ad-hoc group of thousands
of volunteers around the world.
A full node is one that has independently
validated the entire Bitcoin blockchain, since the
Genesis Block mined by Satoshi in 2009.
The more active nodes there are, the more distrib-
uted, and therefore resilient, the whole network
becomes.
There are currently over 19,000 reachable full
nodes worldwide, & far more unreachable ones.
All participating nodes are equal.
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
80
BROADCAST ~ Letting the network know you are
sending bitcoin to someone.
When you click ‘Send’, your wallet signs the trans-
action with your private key and broadcasts it,
letting all the other nodes know of your intention
to transfer value so that they can validate the
transaction.
MEMPOOL ~ A transaction waiting room
This is the ‘waiting room’ where validated trans-
actions are sent to be picked up by a miner and
added to a block.
BLOCK ~ A ‘page’ in the bitcoin ledger
The Bitcoin distributed ledger is made up of dig-
ital ‘blocks’.
Each block contains verified bitcoin transactions
that keep the global ledger accurate and current.
They also contain the nonce, a time-stamp and a
hash of the previous block, all of which
contribute to the immutability of the bitcoin
blockchain.
BLOCKCHAIN ~ The whole bitcoin ledger
The bitcoin blockchain, also known as the
timechain, is the distributed ledger that contains
every block, and every bitcoin transaction ever
made since the Genesis block was mined by
Satoshi in 2009.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
81
How Does Work?
MINER ~ A specialized node that both confirms
transactions and issues new bitcoins.
Bitcoin miners are specialized computers. They
direct lots of computing power (hashrate) in a
digital lottery to guess a number that will satisfy
the current difficulty algorithm, thereby ‘mining’
a ‘block’ (a piece of the ledger).
A mined block is timestamped and added to the
blockchain (aka timechain).
DIFFICULTY ALGORITHM ~ A special, adaptive
design that helps keep new bitcoin issuance
predictable.
This was one of Satoshis genius solutions to help
protect the bitcoin issuance from outrunning itself,
as more advanced computers are developed.
When more miners come online, the target num-
ber (nonce) in the ‘lottery’ gets smaller, and there-
fore more difficult to find.
When less miners are online, it gets easier.
The algorithm adjusts automatically every 2016
blocks (about every two weeks), to ensure a pre-
dictable rate of supply, where one block is mined
on average every ten minutes.
NONCE ~ A 32-bit random number
A 32-bit random number that miners add to the
end of the hashed list of transactions, to attempt
to satisfy the difficulty target to mine a block.
When a miner finds a nonce that leads to
generating a hash below the current target
number, they have mined a block and get to add
it to the blockchain and claim the bitcoin block
reward.
82
TIMESTAMP ~ Stamps the time
Every block mined has a timestamp added to it.
This is for added security, immutability and to help
establish the difficulty adjustment
IMMUTABILITY ~ Cannot be changed.
This means the blockchain is ‘set in digital stone’.
PROOF-OF-WORK (PoW) ~ Cryptographic proof
that difficult work was done to satisfy an algorithm.
Miners use the PoW algorithm to prove they have
used a lot of computational power via electricity
(work), in order to achieve consensus in a decen-
tralized manner, and to prevent corrupt actors
from spamming the network.
PUBLIC KEY CRYPTOGRAPHY ~ A process that
creates the digital keys to access your bitcoins.
This is a system whereby two keys are created
through a cryptographic algorithm.
One key is public - Like your bank account num-
ber, that you can give people to send bitcoin to
you for goods, gifts or services.
The other key is private - Only you have a copy,
and you use it to unlock access to your bitcoin,
just as a password unlocks your online bank
account.
You must secure your private key very well,
since anyone who has access to it has access to
your bitcoin.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
83
How Does Work?
PEER-TO-PEER (P2P) NETWORK ~ A decentralized
network with no middlemen
Full nodes (
peers) collaboratively
maintain
a
peer-
to-peer
network
for
transaction and
block valida
-
tion
and verification
.
In
this
typ
e of
network, each node is able to
both provide/request data to/from its peers.
There are no gatekeepers in a P2P network.
LIGHTNING NETWORK ~ A network built on bit-
coin that makes it possible to send or receive
sats very fast and almost for free.
L
ightning is a Layer 2 scaling solution. This means
it pr
ovides
a way for bitcoin to scale, giving it the
potential
to pr
ocess millions
of transactions per
second (TPS)
.
WALLET ~ A ‘wallet’ holds the cryptographic
keys to access your bitcoin.
It can be on a phone, computer or on a separate
small hardware device (the safest).
A bitcoin wallet would more accurately be called a
signing device. Your bitcoin never actually leaves
the blockchain, the digital ledger.
When you wish to send or spend your bitcoin, the
wallet will sign and broadcast the transaction to
the network, so that it can be validated and
added into a block on the blockchain.
DEVELOPERS ~ Computer programmers
Cypherpunks/programmers that maintain the net-
work, improve security, check for bugs, submit
pull requests (for new updates or features), review
pull requests, audit the code.
84
PUBLIC KEY ~ Like a bank account number for
receiving bitcoin.
You can give it to people to send you bitcoin,
just like you would give your account number to
someone so they can send you fiat.
PRIVATE KEY ~ For securing, accessing and send-
ing bitcoin, like the key to a safety deposit box.
A bitcoin private key is a secret string of numbers
and letters that allows you to send/spend your
bitcoin.
Only you have a copy. **It is very important to
keep it very safe and secure, as anyone who
obtains a copy can spend your bitcoin.**
DISTRIBUTED LEDGER ~ A ledger maintained by
everyone who wishes to help maintain it.
Instead of a centrally-controlled ledger that is
invisible to the public, like one that a bank main-
tains, Bitcoin is a transparent, open, decentralized
ledger visible to anyone, anytime.
The addresses are strings of letters and numbers,
with no names attached.
While pseudonymous, it is possible to track trans-
actions, especially if the bitcoin was bought from
a centralized KYC exchange.
The Bitcoin network is trustless and anyone can
audit it anytime, unlike a bank where one must
trust that the ledgers are being kept honestly.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
85
How Does Work?
MORE ON MININGMORE ON MINING
Bitcoin is ‘mined’ by specially designed, powerful
computers all over the world, called ASIC miners
- Application Specific Integrated Circuit miners.
Whatsminer M50S
Miners devote computing power AKA hashrate,
via electricity to the network, to add blocks to the
Bitcoin blockchain.
These computers run 24 hours a day, usually in sets
of a few, to a few hundred or thousand.
They are basically running a lottery. When one of
them guesses a number (the nonce) that generates a
hash that satisfies the current difficulty target, they
get to add the next block to the timechain.
All the above is the proof-of-work (PoW) needed to
birth new bitcoins.
Antminer S21 Pro
B
it
a
xe
401 Supra
86
BITCOIN BLOCK REWARDBITCOIN BLOCK REWARD
For their work, miners get:
A subsidy, in the form of freshly minted bitcoins.
Plus, the fees from the verified transactions
included in that block.
When you send bitcoin to someone, that transaction
includes a fee and needs to be verified by a miner,
and then included in a block.
The bitcoin block subsidy gets cut in half every four
years.
It is currently 3.125 bitcoin per block that is mined.
The next ‘halving’ will be in 2028, at which point
the block reward will drop to 1.5625 bitcoin per
block mined.
As mentioned before, this keeps the issuance stable.
In the year 2140, the last piece of bitcoin will be
mined.
After that, miners will only get the fees from the trans-
actions they verify in each block.
= Subsidy + Fees
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
87
How Does Work?
In a few decades when the reward gets too
small, the transaction fee will become the
main compensation for nodes (miners).
~ Satoshi Nakamoto
Bitcointalk.org, 2010-02-14
Miners will always be needed to verify transactions,
thereby keeping the network updated and secure.
While one needs to be aware that there are costs
involved, and profitability is negligible for home
miners, it is a powerful way to help secure and keep
the network decentralized.
Miners last quite a few years. There are currently many
Antminer S9s for example, that have been running
for over 6 years.
When miners are retired they can easily be taken
apart and recycled.
Tons of fascinating innovation is happening, with
people using the excess heat from miners to
heat their homes, saunas, greenhouses, hot tubs,
dry jerky and vegetables, heat decks, dry wood and
more!
88
A WORD ON THE A WORD ON THE
LIGHTNING NETWORKLIGHTNING NETWORK
Bitcoin blocks are intentionally small* (1MB each),
resulting in the bitcoin mainchain being able to pro-
cess about 7 transactions per second (TPS).
Visa processes about 24,000 TPS.
Also, it generally takes about 10 minutes for the
first confirmation to go through on a mainchain
transaction (since a block is mined on
average every ~10 minutes).
This is not practical if you are at a store and want to
make a quick payment for your goods.
* Important Detail: The reason the blocks are small,
is to keep the timechain small enough for anyone to
run their own node at home, which helps keep the
network decentralized. Satoshi realized the
importance of this
Bitcoin users might get increasingly
tyrannical about limiting the size of
the chain so it’s easy for lots of users
and small devices.
~ Satoshi Nakamoto, 2010-12-10
Re
commended Reading
:
The Blocksize War by Jonathan Bier
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
89
A Word On The Lightning Network
Enter, the Lightning Network (LN), a Layer 2 bitcoin
scaling solution.
‘Layer 2’ means it is built on top of bitcoin.
‘Scaling Solution’ means it allows the network to:
Vastly increase the speed of processing.
Vastly increase the number of transactions it
can process per second.
Make micropayments possible.
The Lightning Network can be (sort of) thought of like
a tab you might keep with some friends at the bar.
You keep track between all of you who owes what
(like a Lightning Network channel), and at the end
of the night your group settles with the barman
(‘the mainchain’).
Lightning channels, however, can stay open for
days, weeks, months or years before being
‘settled’ on the mainchain.
90
BENEFITS OF BENEFITS OF : :
VOLUME - The volume of transactions per second is
in essence limitless, as countless channels can be
opened at the same time, each keeping their own
‘tab’.
MICROPAYMENTS - You can send as little as 1
satoshi (currently $0.0006).
SPEED - It usually takes between a millisecond and a
few seconds to receive a payment.
PRIVACY - Transactions are not stored on the open,
public bitcoin blockchain. In some ways it is even
more private than cash, because with Lightning,
even the other party does not necessarily know who
you are, as your payment often ‘hops’ through
different channels to reach the receiver.
To be clear, I am not saying it is 100% impossible to
uncover, just far more so than with payments on the
bitcoin mainchain.
It would take an immense amount of time and energy
to establish with certainty who was making payments
to whom, and it would not always be possible to
do so at all.
Enjoy amazing visualizations of the current state
of the Lightning Network at:
lnrouter.app/gr
aph
mempool.space/graphs/lightning/nodes-
channels-map
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
91
A Word On The Lightning Network
Bitcoin itself cannot scale to have every
single nancial transaction in the
world be broadcast to everyone and
included in the blockchain.
There needs to be a secondary level of
payment systems which is lighter
weight and more ecient.
~ Hal Finney, 2010-12-30, Early cypherpunk
& the second person to run Bitcoin
Think of it like this:
Bitcoin: Savings Account ~ Slower transactions for
larger amounts.
Lightning: Checking Account ~ Faster transactions
for smaller amounts.
Bitcoin enhanced by Lightning can be viewed as both a
product (digital property) and a service (open monetary
network). The ability to transfer monetary energy through
time and space without government intervention or
conventional banking is enormously valuable to humanity.
~ Michael Saylor, CEO
Microstrategy
Learn more about Lightning here:
lopp.net/lightning-information.html
92
HOW TO HOW TO
To Bitcoin: (verb) /tuːˈbɪtkɔɪn/
I hereby propose making ‘to bitcoin’ a verb,
that encapsulates the fullness of participating
in the bitcoin/Bitcoin eco-system.
Ok, now that you have, hopefully ;) been orange-
pilled, and are ready to become your own bank, par-
ticipating in the world’s first global freedom money,
here comes the fun part!
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
93
How To
BECOMING YOUR OWN BANKBECOMING YOUR OWN BANK
This is where the really epic shift in becoming fina-
cially self-sovereign lies, and, it can take time to
really, truly grasp what this means.
Some intention and dedication is required to
understand how to do it in the most secure way
possible.
In the spirit of keeping this book ‘the simplest
bitcoin book ever written’, I will provide an
outline here, and then I offer resources at the end
for you to dive in to that go much deeper than
the scope of this primer.
HODL: (verb) /ho’dill/
: to hold on to your bitcoin
: to not sell
- From a 2013 bitcointalk.org post, where the poster
professing to be drunk, misspelled ‘HOLD’
- bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=375643.0
While the network is still growing, there is much
value in the millions of global hodl’rs of last resort.
94
ACQUIRING BITCOINACQUIRING BITCOIN
Bitcoin enters the market by miners selling some of
the bitcoins they receive as rewards, in order to pay
for their operating costs.
You can acquire bitcoin by buying on a peer-to-peer
trading platform, by accepting it as payment for
goods or services you offer, as a gift, or by mining
it. (A very last resort, not recommended, is to buy it
from a registered exchange).
When you receive it, you are technically receiving the
private keys with which to access your bitcoin.
Remember: The bitcoin itself never leaves the
timechain.
You can acquire bitcoin either anonymously, or
with ID verification (KYC - Know Your Customer)
KYC is required by law to fulfill AML (anti-money laun-
dering laws) when buying from exchanges.
Buying non-KYC bitcoin preserves your right to
privacy in the future.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
95
How To
Non-KYC >> AnonymouslyNon-KYC >> Anonymously
How to Get non-KYC Bitcoin (No ID):
RECOMMENDED
1. Download a bitcoin-only wallet app (see pg 102).
2. Choose a method (see below).
3. Buy, receive or mine bitcoin.
4. Withdraw your bitcoin to your wallet.
5. HODL, or spend and replace.
Buy it from Robosats, Bisq, HodlHodl, Peach Bitcoin.
Buy it from a bitcoin ATM - Be sure to check, as
some require ID. Others just ask for a name and
number (you can use a temporary phone #).
Buy an Azteco voucher - Visit azte.co for locations.
Earn it for work you do - Ask to be paid in bitcoin.
Offer to discount your price.
Buy it in person at a bitcoin meet-up.
Mine it - It is getting easier to mine at home, or
you can join a mining pool, but then DYOR to stay
KYC-free. Ocean Pool is a great option.
96
KYC >> ID Verification RequiredKYC >> ID Verification Required
How to Buy KYC Bitcoin (with ID):
NOT RECOMMENDED
1. Download a bitcoin-only wallet app (see pg 102).
2. Choose a bitcoin-only exchange.
3. Create an account & link a payment method.
4. Fulfill the KYC requirements.
5. Buy bitcoin.
6. Withdraw
your bitcoin to your own wallet.
7. HODL or spend and replace.
Be aware that your bitcoin will be forever linked to
your identity if you buy it this wa
y, thus forfeiting
future pseudonymity with regard to these purchases.
If you choose this method, I recommend finding a
reputable bitcoin-only exchange.
Be sure the exchange allows you to withdraw your
bitcoin to your own wallet!
Exchanges are required by law to ‘KYC’ you.
They will take your full name, address, social security
number, email, phone number and often a photo of
you holding your ID.
Confirm that the exchange has both phone and email
support for customer service.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
97
How To
Have them walk you through sending your bitcoin
from your account with them to your own wallet, so
that you are self-custodying your bitcoin
= Holding your own keys.
Note: This does NOT erase the fact you
bought bitcoin from them.
Transactions are traceable on-chain, and in
many countries you are liable for taxation when
spending your bitcoin.
If you want to buy through Venmo or Paypal, be
sure to first confirm that you can still withdraw
your sats to your own self-hosted wallet. In the
past you could not do so.
As they say:
“No keys, No cheese” or
“Not your keys, Not your bitcoin”
What this means is, so long as a centralized service is
holding the private keys to your bitcoin, there remains
the possibility that their platform gets hacked, or that
they undergo regulatory capture and you lose your
bitcoin.
Always withdraw your bitcoin to your own
self-hosted wallet as soon as you have
bought it.
98
EO 6102EO 6102
In 1933 President Roosevelt issued Executive Order
6102, which required every US citizen to turn in
most of their gold in exchange for bank notes.
The gold was valued at $20.67/oz. The following
year, the government increased the price of gold to
$35/oz with the Gold Reserve Act of 1934,
effectively devaluing the notes people had
received by almost half, since the value of their
notes never went up with the inflated gold price.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
99
How To
It took until 1975, 42 years later, for EO6102 to
be repealed, and for private citizens to once again
be allowed to hold more than 5oz of gold.
At this stage, we have little idea how the regulators
are going to respond to bitcoin as it continues to
gain popularity and more widespread adoption.
So far, there has been a mixed reception. For the
time being however, it seems that many
understand, or perhaps just accept, that bitcoin
cannot ultimately be stopped.
There are a number of politicians starting to speak
in support of bitcoin as part of their platform.
There are also some against it.
Being an election year in the US, 2024 is very
interesting, with all three major Presidential
candidates accepting bitcoin campaign donations!
Ultimately, it would be in the
interest of every gov-
ernment to embrace it and add it to their balance
sheet, as a hedge against their rapidly inflating
fiat currencies.
El Salvador made it a form of legal tender in 2021.
It will be interesting to see which country is next.
100
SECURELY STORING BITCOINSECURELY STORING BITCOIN
Once you have taken the life-changing step of buying
Being your own bank is a powerful form of
self-sovereignty.
It needs to be taken seriously!
* Please DYOR - Do Your Own Research * beyond
my basic recommendations here.
The bitcoin ecosystem is evolving every minute.
Nostr, Twitter and bitcointalk.org are good
places to stay on top of the latest developments.
CHECK OUT THESE SITES FOR TUTORIALS:CHECK OUT THESE SITES FOR TUTORIALS:
BTCSessions.ca by @BTCSessions
Bitcoiner.guide by @QnA
Armantheparman.com by @ArmanTheParman
@SouthernBitcoiner on YouTube
@wickedsmartbitcoin on YouTube
your first , you need to decide how to securely
store it.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
101
How To
BITCOIN-ONLY WALLETSBITCOIN-ONLY WALLETS
Bitcoin is best stored in your own
self-hosted
non-custodial
bitcoin-only ‘wallet’
A ‘wallet’ is actually a piece of software which is a
signing device. It contains your private keys which it
uses to sign a transaction you send (broadcast).
HOT WALLETHOT WALLET
This is an online bitcoin wallet app that you down-
load to your phone or computer.
It is best used for smaller amounts, for day-to-day
spending.
COLD STORAGE WALLETCOLD STORAGE WALLET
This is an offline wallet. Also known as a hardware
wallet.
It is a separate hardware device on which to store
your keys.
W
hile both work well, it is generally recommended
to make use of a cold wallet once you have over
$500-1000 worth of bitcoin, as it is more secure.
102
HOT WALLET APPS - Non-Custodial
Blue Wallet, Muun Wallet, Mutiny Wallet
Sparrow Wallet, Green Wallet, Phoenix
Wallet, Zeus Wallet, Breez Wallet
COLD STORAGE WALLETS - Non-Custodial
Cold Card, Trezor, Foundation Passport,
Blockstream Jade, Seed Signer, Bitbox,
ALWAYS purchase your cold storage wallet direct
from the manufacturer, to be certain it has not been
tampered with.
Please DYOR to compare the features and
trade-offs between the wallets shown below.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
103
How To
When setting up your wallet, be sure to write down
the 12- or 24-word Seed Phrase on paper.
Keep it ofine. Never take a screenshot of it.
STORE THE SEED PHRASE VERY SAFELY.
VERY, VERY SAFELY!
Many companies make metal seed plates into
which you can punch your seed phrase for added
fire/water/damage protection. Highly recommend!
If you were to lose access to your hot or cold wallet,
you can restore it with the seed phrase and recover
your funds.
You can do so on any wallet that supports the same
type of BIP39 seed phrase (12/24 words).
Best practice would be to store the wallet
descriptor of your wallet in addition to your seed.
REMEMBER: Anyone who has your seed has
access to your bitcoin!
Fol
low @BTCSessions on YouTube for excellent
tutorials on wallet set-up, and lots more.
104
ON PRIVACYON PRIVACY
Privacy when buying (non-KYC), securing, storing
and spending bitcoin is becoming more and more
important, especially in light of recent events with
bank accounts being seized/frozen.
In addition, general digital privacy is critical if you
wish to gain online sovereignty, and protect your-
self from undue surveillance and fraud.
Below are some current privacy-focused services.
It is beyond the scope of this book to go deeply into
each of the following, so absolutely DYOR, and
follow the accounts I mention below on Nostr or
Twitter for updates.
Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic
age. Privacy is not secrecy. A private matter is something
one doesn’t want the whole world to know, but a secret
matter is something one doesn’t want anybody to know.
Privacy is the power to selectively reveal
oneself to the world.
~Eric Hughes, From ‘A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto’
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
105
On Privacy
PRIVACY GUIDESPRIVACY GUIDES
Bitcoiner.guide @BitcoinQ_A
Econoalchemist.com @econoalchemist
Sethforprivacy.com @sethforprivacy
diverter.hostyourown.tools @Diverter_NoKYC
Citadeldispatch.com @ODELL on Nostr
KYCnot.me
Lopp.net @lopp > Click Resources > Privacy
Privacytools.io
Enegnei.github.io
Restoreprivacy.com @ResPrivacy
Keepitsimplebitcoin.com @KISBitcoin
nbtv.media @naomibrockwell
VPN (Virtual Private Network to VPN (Virtual Private Network to
Obscure your ISP)Obscure your ISP)
Mullvad.net - Pay with bitcoin
IVPN.net - Pay with bitcoin
TWO-FACTOR AUTHENTICATION APPSTWO-FACTOR AUTHENTICATION APPS
Yubi Key - Hardware
2FAS - Android-only App
Bitwarden Authenticator - Android & iOS App
PRIVACY-FOCUSED BROWSERSPRIVACY-FOCUSED BROWSERS
TOR
Firefox Focus
Mullvad Browser
Duck Duck Go
106
ENCRYPTED ‘NOTES’ APPENCRYPTED ‘NOTES’ APP
StandardNotes.com
PRIVACY-FOCUSED SEARCH ENGINESPRIVACY-FOCUSED SEARCH ENGINES
Duck Duck Go
Kagi - Paid and ad-free
SearXNG
Swisscows
Mojeek
PRIVACY-FOCUSED MESSAGING APPSPRIVACY-FOCUSED MESSAGING APPS
Signal
SimpleX
Session
Telegram - 'Secret Chat' setting
RUNNING YOUR OWN NODERUNNING YOUR OWN NODE
Bitcoin Knots
Bitcoin Core
Ronin Dojo
Run Citadel
Raspi Blitz
Umbrel - If you just run your bitcoin node on it.
CELL PHONES/SINGLE USE PH #’SCELL PHONES/SINGLE USE PH #’S
Run Graphene OS on an Android Pixel
Silent.link - Accepts bitcoin & Lightning
Text Verified - Accepts bitcoin
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
107
On Privacy
PRIVATE SPENDINGPRIVATE SPENDING
The Bitcoin Company
Bitrefill
Bit.Store
Note: Always read the small print
PRIVATE RECEIVING ADDRESS BOTPRIVATE RECEIVING ADDRESS BOT
PayNym
DECENTRALIZED SOCIAL MEDIADECENTRALIZED SOCIAL MEDIA
Nostr
The possibility to be anonymous or
pseudonymous relies on you not revealing
any identifying information about
yourself in connection with the bitcoin
addresses you use. If you post your
bitcoin address on the web, then you’re
associating that address and any
transactions with it with the name you
posted under.
If you posted under a handle that
you haven’t associated with your real
identity, then you’re still pseudonymous.
~ Satoshi Nakamoto 2009-11-25
For greater privacy, it’s best to use
bitcoin addresses only once. You can
change addresses as often as you want.
~Satoshi Nakamoto 2009-11-25
108
DISPELLING DISPELLING FUD FUD
(Fear Uncertainty Doubt)
Below are some common arguments against, or fears
about, bitcoin.
These are largely unfounded, resulting from igno-
rance, or perhaps incomplete understanding.
I provide brief rebuttals to each here, and at the end
you will find pointers to more in-depth resources
rebutting all the FUD.
BITCOIN USES TOO MUCH ENERGYBITCOIN USES TOO MUCH ENERGY
The heat from your computer is not wasted
if you need to heat your home… It’s
equal cost if you generate the heat
with your computer.
~ Satoshi Nakamoto 2010-08-09
At rst, the production of a commodity simply because it
is costly seems quite wasteful. However, the unforgeably
costly commodity repeatedly adds value by enabling
benecial wealth transfers. More of the cost is recouped
every time a transaction is made possible or made
less expensive. The cost, initially a complete waste, is
amortized over many transactions.
~ Nick Szabo
Cypherpunk
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
109
Dispelling FUD
Too much’ energy is a value proposition that must
consider how we value the purpose of the energy
use.
When one considers that the Christmas lights in the
US use as much electricity as the entire Bitcoin net-
work, then perhaps one can see that it is all relative!
Using energy, even a whole lot of energy, to secure
the hardest, most censorship-resistant money
humanity has ever known, is more than worth it.
In comparing bitcoin energy usage to that used by
the legacy system, we also need to consider the ‘full
stack’ on both sides:
Bitcoin Ecosystem Legacy Fiat System
ASIC Miners BIS
Nodes Central Banks
Hardware Wallets National/Regional Banks
Software Wallet Apps Military Industrial Complex
Backup Data Centers
Physical Money Printing
Online Banking Apps
By using bitcoin, we will ultimately reduce energy
usage in a multitude of other areas, most notably
by no longer needing the Military Industrial
Complex to protect the petro dollar.
Network of ATMs
Physical Money Distribution
110
Also, the rampant consumerism that is required to
keep the debt-based system afloat, will over time
be curtailed, as hard money naturally incentivizes
prudent spending and saving (since your savings
will actually hold their value, a concept we have not
experienced since being off the gold standard).
Lastly, and importantly, bitcoin mining is already
reducing pollution by capturing flared natural gas
and using it to power the miners. Since miners seek
low electricity costs, it is also likely to be the biggest
driver toward renewable low cost energy, since the
incentives match up.
Informed deep dives on Bitcoin and Energy have
been written by Daniel Batten on batcoinz.com, Troy
Cross, Jyn Urso, the video ‘This Machine Greens’
by Swan Bitcoin on YouTube, 'Dirty Coin', A
bitcoin mining documentary, and an
excellent episode of the ‘What is Money’ show
(WiM161) with B.Quittem, among many others.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
111
Dispelling FUD
BITCOIN IS A PONZIBITCOIN IS A PONZI
Bitcoin is not a Ponzi:
Old investors are not paid any money by new
investors.
When buying bitcoin, no one is promising a return
on your investment.
There is no leadership or promotions team.
There was no pre-mine.
Read: ‘Why Bitcoin is Not a Ponzi’ by Lyn Alden
for more.
BITCOIN IS TOO SLOWBITCOIN IS TOO SLOW
While the Bitcoin base layer is slow, the 2
nd
layer
Lightning Network built on the base layer is
lightning fast!
Bitcoins network can process about 7
transactions per second (TPS).
The Visa network claims it can process up to 24,000
TPS, although 4,000 TPS is closer to actual usage.
The Lightning Network, a second layer solution
built on Bitcoin, has the potential capacity to
process millions of transactions per second!
112
GOGOVERNMENTVERNMENTS CS COOULD BAN BITULD BAN BITCCOINOIN
Some governments have tried, like China, India and
Nigeria for example. In each case, the use of bitcoin
rises rapidly by the people of said country.
There is no way for governments to truly ‘ban’ bit-
coin, as it is by its nature permissionless and censor-
ship-resistant. It is code and code is speech.
That said, governments can make it harder to buy
and sell with, and into fiat. They can also tax it as a
commodity, like they do in the US.
Ultimately, it will not be in their favor to try and ban
it, since bitcoin is inevitable and they are starting
to see that. They would be far smarter to add it to
their countrys balance sheet as a hedge against their
inflating fiat currencies.
Governments are good at cutting o the
heads of centrally controlled networks
like Napster, but pure P2P networks
like Gnutella and Tor seem to be
holding their own.
~ Satoshi Nakamoto
Read:
Can Government Stop Bitcoin? by Alex Gladstein,
CSO of the Human Rights Foundation
Can the Government Ban Bitcoin? Four Things You
Need to Know by Nick Giambruno
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
113
Dispelling FUD
BITCOIN IS OLD TECHBITCOIN IS OLD TECH
More like ‘ultimate tech’, with regards to digital
scarcity, decentralization and solving both the dou-
ble-spending problem and the Byzantine General’s
problem. Once discovered, it cannot be re-discovered.
Once the wheel was invented, it could never be
reinvented.
The TCP/IP protocol that the internet runs on has
been the standard for all computer networking since
1983. It is likely to continue being the standard for a
long time.
Once a prefect-solution, base layer technology is dis-
covered that works optimally, it can last for hundreds,
or thousands of years.
Credit: @DecouvreBitcoin
114
BITCOIN IS USED BY CRIMINALSBITCOIN IS USED BY CRIMINALS
So is the dollar, and every other fiat currency in the
world. It is simply incorrect to attribute this
problem only to bitcoin.
Bitcoin is a tool, just like a knife, and it is up to each
one of us how we use it.
Interestingly, if bitcoin couldn't be used by criminals,
then it would not be the neutral, censorship-resistant
money the world so badly needs.
Note: Since the Bitcoin blockchain is auditable, it is
actually a really bad choice for criminal activity!
QUANTUM COMPUTING COULD QUANTUM COMPUTING COULD
BREAK BITCOINBREAK BITCOIN
While this may be a possibility one day in the future,
developers are already working on solutions for post-
quantum encryption.
Bitcoin is only one of a multitude of online appli-
cations that rely on SHA-256 hashing for security.
Even the military uses it, so there is massive incen-
tive beyond the bitcoin community to develop new
encryption protocols.
If SHA-256 is broken, we will have a lot else to
worry about beyond bitcoin. The entire internet uses
it for encryption. This includes all banking, supply
chains, transportation systems, healthcare systems,
education systems and more.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
115
Dispelling FUD
BITCOIN HAS NO REAL VALUEBITCOIN HAS NO REAL VALUE
“Bitcoin's value is driven by its enforceable scarcity”
~ Fidelity Digital Assets
Rarity is the value. All money over all time has been
valued because it had some measure of scarcity.
In addition, it was backed by the belief that it would
hold its value, such that it could be traded in the
future for something else of value.
As the Bitcoin network grows, backed by the superior
monetary properties it embodies, the network effect
grows exponentially.
The larger the network effect, the more value it, as a
scarce asset, offers. Value is a reflection of demand,
and as demand increases, value increases.
116
SOME PEOPLE HAVE TOO MUCHSOME PEOPLE HAVE TOO MUCH
It is true that some people have far more than others.
In releasing the protocol openly, Satoshi allowed it to
roam freely, and those that understood the potential
it held either mined, or bought in early. It was the
fairest and most organic way possible to present it
to the world.
Over time, when the world is hyperbitcoinized, mean-
ing we are living on a bitcoin standard, those that
have more will naturally spend it into the economy.
Even though at a certain point one will no longer be
able to buy it with fiat, people will get paid for their
work in bitcoin. Being paid in truly sound money will
allow us to have real savings that will not be debased
over time by inflation
While there will always be those with more wealth
and those with less, due to a vast number of factors,
a bitcoin standard will make the membrane between
wealth classes permeable, as Aleks Svetsi says. This
will allow both upward and downward mobility to be
far, far more fluid than it is today.
Having been born into, and swimming our whole lives
in a fiat world, it is almost impossible to imagine, and
fully grok the implications of having a money that
cannot be debased or manipulated!
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
117
Dispelling FUD
BITCOIN IS TOO VOLATILEBITCOIN IS TOO VOLATILE
This is normal during the price discovery phase of
a new monetary asset. There is no other way for
growth to happen when it is organic and emergent
(as opposed to top down and centrally controlled.
In addition, at this stage of human existence, with
exponential shifts happening in all spheres, it makes
sense that something as rEVOLutionary as bitcoin will
have wild swings.
While those of us deep down the rabbit hole see it
as the future, currently only a small percent of the
global population holds bitcoin at this time. This
makes it vulnerable to immense volatility.
As it matures, and adoption increases, the volatil-
ity will decrease, and eventually it will stabilize and
become a unit of account.
I’m sure that in 20 years there will
either be very large transaction
volume or no volume.
~ Satoshi Nakamoto 2010-02-14
118
YYOOU CU CAN’T TAN’T TOOUUCH A BITCH A BITCCOINOIN
This is a feature, not a bug. The very fact that bitcoin
is not physical is one of the biggest factors contrib-
uting to its unconfiscatability!
BITCOIN COULD GET HACKEDBITCOIN COULD GET HACKED
In the 15 years since it was launched, it has never
been hacked.
There have been hacks at exchanges however, so I
highly recommend moving your bitcoin to your own
self-custody wallet as soon as possible.
It has been estimated that to break the SHA-256
encryption (that bitcoin uses) within 24 hours, a
quantum computer would need 13,000,000 physical
qubits. At this time, the current qubit record held
by Atom Computing in California is 1,180 qubits.
It is widely assumed that a quantum-safe encryption
method will be developed well before it is needed.
Being open source means anyone can
independently review the code. If it was
closed source, nobody could verify the
security. I think it’s essential for a
program of this nature to be open source.
~Satoshi Nakamoto 2009-12-10
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
119
Dispelling FUD
MORE ON DEBUNKING FUD HERE:MORE ON DEBUNKING FUD HERE:
Endthefud.org
Bitcoinmythbusters.org
Casebitcoin.com - Common Critiques
Safehodl.github.io/failure/
Lopp.net - Bitcoin Info: Misconceptions
Bitcoin is fundamentally different from any other digital
asset. No other digital asset is likely to improve upon
bitcoin as a monetary good because bitcoin is the most
(relative to other digital assets) secure, decentralized,
sound digital money and any “improvement”
will necessarily face tradeoffs.
~ Fidelity Digital Assets Report, ‘Bitcoin First’, Jan 2022
Chris Kuiper, CFA, Director of Research
Jack Neureuter, Research Analyst
120
ON THE PRICE OF BITCOINON THE PRICE OF BITCOIN
I see hodling (holding) bitcoin like having a long-term
savings account.
The daily price doesn’t matter, as it is expected to be
volatile (go up and down) for some years yet.
As I mentioned previously, this is normal for a new
asset undergoing price discovery.
If one zooms out on the BTC/USD price chart, you
will see that it has increased by +31,296% since 2009,
averaged out to ~200% per year.
The price swings reflect various news articles, regula-
tory updates, market demand, fear and excitement.
It’s a roller-coaster!
The longer you hodl, the more you learn and under-
stand the fundamentals, and the more you realize
the profound implications of having sound money,
the less the price matters.
In the end, ‘price’ won’t matter at all, as bitcoin
will be the unit of account.
Disclaimer:
Only put in what you ‘can afford to lose’, since
there are, of course, no guarantees.
Consider the bitcoin you buy as a long-term
savings account, and plan to leave it in cold
storage for a minimum of five years before
spending.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
121
Dispelling FUD
Original bitcointalkforum.org source for one of the
most classic bitcoin memes of all time.
122
IN THE MEANTIME, ON TAXESIN THE MEANTIME, ON TAXES
Disclaimer: This is not financial or tax advice
In the US tax code, bitcoin is currently seen as a com-
modity, so there are potential tax implications if you
sell it back into fiat, or even if you buy something with
your bitcoin.
If the price went down before you sold/spent it, you
can claim a loss.
If the price went up, you are supposed to claim a
capital gain, and pay between 10-30% CGT (Capital
Gains Tax).
The amount depends upon several factors, such as
how long you held it before selling or spending, and
in which tax bracket you land.
If you plan to sell or spend bitcoin, especially larger
amounts, you may want to consider consulting with
a tax professional.
If you simply buy and hold, you currently do not have
any taxable events regarding bitcoin.
And if you buy non-KYC…
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
123
WHY WHY ONLY? ONLY?
Of the over 2.5 million* (!) cryptocurrencies ever created,
and 13,000 currently trading, bitcoin is the only one that is:
TRULY decentralized
With a TRULY distributed ledger
A TRULY hard capped supply
A TRULY immutable ledger
A network effect built over 15 years
And a monetary policy that cannot be manipulated!
Every other cryptocurrency has a small, centralized
group who controls the supply, and/or has the
power to change the base layer protocol (monetary
policy).
This is just like the central fiat banking system we
see toda
y.
Centralized power like this begs for
manipulation and
corruption.
See the altcoin pump/dump scam described on the
following page.
Listen to:
Stephan Livera Pod (SLP306) with Guy Swann
A partial list of altcoin/defi rug-pulls since 2020:
rekt.news/leaderboard/
* coingecko.com/research/publications/how-many-
cryptocurrencies-are-there
124
ALTCOIN PUMP AND DUMPSALTCOIN PUMP AND DUMPS
Sadly, these are real, and happen daily with ‘cryp-
tos/tokens’ other than bitcoin.
There are various iterations, but one of the most
common types is the following:
Token Created: A new crypto token gets made. Far
easier than it sounds, anyone can do it in minutes.
Website: Often, a shiny, fancy website is created to
make the token look legit.
Paid Influencers: Paid to promote it on social media,
Telegram etc.
Paid Insider Groups: The info is sent to leaders of
some of the hundreds of Trading’ or ‘Investment’
Groups, where people pay monthly or annual fees to
get ‘insider intel’.
Pre-Launch: The paid influencers and paid group lead-
ers buy first, at the bottom price.
Launch: The token is ‘launched’ by these influencers
and group leaders, who tell their followers: ”Quick,
buy now!”
Pump: The price pumps fast as their followers scram-
ble to get in early.
The rapidly rising price entices regular people to buy
in, in the hopes of making their fortune.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
125
Why Only?
This in turn has the effect of pumping the price
even further.
Dump: This sad part usually happens fast. At a certain
point, the paid group leaders sell their tokens, ‘at the
top’. Then they tell their followers to sell.
Price Drop: Because so many people sell at the
same time, and liquidity is generally low since it is
a new coin, the price drops fast.
Panic: The price drop causes panic amidst the general
public, who have no idea of these back-door shenan-
igans, and they start to panic-sell.
Bag Holders: The end of this sad story is that those
left ‘holding the bag’, will likely be holding their bags
forever.
Without any real value or fundamentals, most of these
tokens and meme coins never recover a market
price.
126
SESECCURITURITY & AY & AVVOIDING SOIDING SCCAMSAMS
Stick with bitcoin only.
Be super vigilant about your cyber security!
Do your own research and secure your bitcoin with
utmost care.
NEVER give your seed words to anyone you
wouldn’t give the key to for your stash of gold!
NEVER click on any links in your email that ask you
to confirm account details of any kind. Instead, go
to the official website directly and check if you have
any notices requiring any actions.
BE AWARE that there are endless imitations of
accounts with large followings on social media. If an
influencer randomly DMs you, it is probably a scam.
AVOID all the scams popping up on social media
accounts, promising to double your bitcoin if you
send some to them! You will lose your bitcoin!
AVOID those same ‘double your cryptoscams on
You Tube.
BE CERTAIN about the address you are sending your
bitcoin to, as transactions are irreversible. Ideally
check the whole address, especially if it is a large
amount.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
127
SATOSHI’S NUMBERS SATOSHI’S NUMBERS
369 CLOCK369 CLOCK
Bitcoin is designed to mine 6 blocks per hour >> one block
on average every ~10 minutes.
24 hours in a day
2+4=6
That works out to 144 blocks per day
1+4+4=9
52560 blocks per year
5+2+5+6+0=18
1+8=9
52704 blocks per leap year
5+2+7+0+4=18
1+8=9
21 Million coins:
2 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 3
33 Halvings:
3 + 3 = 6
Difficulty adjusts every 2016 blocks:
2 + 0 + 1 + 6 = 9
~ Based on a tweet by @level39
The block reward halving happens every
210,000
th
block (approximately every four years)
2 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 3
128
“If you only knew the magnicence of the 3, 6 and 9, then
you would have the key to the universe.”
~ Nikola Tesla
BLOCK REWARD = % OF SUPPLYBLOCK REWARD = % OF SUPPLY
The block subsidy (number of bitcoins rewarded
for each newly mined block) represents the
percentage of the total supply that will be mined
during that epoch.
For example, the current block reward between
2024-2028 is 3.125 bitcoin.
In these same four years, 3.125% of the 21
million bitcoins will be mined.
Credit: @bitcoinfool
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
129
Satoshi’s Numbers
REWARD EPOCHSREWARD EPOCHS
Every four years, the bitcoin subsidy gets halved for each
block mined. A Reward Epoch is that four year period.
Reward epoch 1: 2009-2012 Block subsidy: 50 bitcoin
= (50 bitcoins * 210,000 blocks) = 10,500,000 bitcoin
1+0+5+0+0+0+0+0 = 6
Reward epoch 2: 2012-2016 Block subsidy: 25 bitcoin
= (25 * 210,000) = 5,250,000 bitcoin
5+2+5+0+0+0+0 = 12
1+2 = 3
Reward epoch 3: 2016-2020 Block subsidy: 12.5 bitcoin
= (12.5 * 210,000) = 2,625,000 bitcoin
2+6+2+5+0+0+0 = 15
1+5 = 6
Reward epoch 4: 2020-2024 Block subsidy: 6.25 bitcoin
= (6.25 * 210,000) = 1,312,500 bitcoin
1+3+1+2+5+0+0 = 12
1+2 = 3
Reward epoch 5: 2024-2028 Block subsidy: 3.125 bitcoin
= (3.125 * 210,000) = 656,250 bitcoin
6+5+6+2+5+0 = 24
2+4 = 6
Reward epoch 6: 2028-2032 Block subsidy: 1.5625 btc
= (1.5625 * 210,000) = 328,125 bitcoin
3+2+8+1+2+5 = 21
2+1 = 3
Reward epoch 7: 2032-2036 Block subsidy: 0.78125 btc
= (0.78125*210,000) = 164,062.5 bitcoin
1+6+4+0+6+2+5 = 24
2+4 = 6
... and so on until 2140
130
SATOSHI’S BIRTHDAYSATOSHI’S BIRTHDAY
April 5, 1975 is the date Satoshi claimed as his
birthday.
While we cannot know if this was indeed his true birth
date, it is very interesting.
April 5th (1933) was the day that Executive Order 6102
was signed by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt
“forbidding the hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion,
and gold certificates within the continental United
States.”
1975 was the year the repeal of EO 6102 went into
effect, and US citizens were once again allowed to
hold more than 5oz of gold.
A NUMERIC PALINDROME 6102-2016A NUMERIC PALINDROME 6102-2016
6102 was the number of the above-mentioned
Executive Order.
2016 is the number of blocks mined during each dif-
ficulty adjustment (approximately 2 weeks).
In both of the above examples, one could
postulate that Satoshi was using numbers
to indicate a reversal, an unwinding of the
damage inflicted by government overreach.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
131
Satoshi’s Numbers
BITCOIN PIZZA DAYBITCOIN PIZZA DAY
May 22 is known as Bitcoin Pizza Day. This was the
day that a guy, named Laszlo Hanyecz, announced
on bitcointalkforum.org that he had successfully
traded 10,000 bitcoin for pizza! Back then that
was about $40.
In todays prices, that would be ~$610,000,000.
It was a milestone for bitcoin, in that it was the first
known incident of someone trading bitcoin for a
good or service. What a long way we have come!
132
BITCOIN CALENDAR OF NOTABLE DAYSBITCOIN CALENDAR OF NOTABLE DAYS
2008-08-18 ~ The domain name bitcoin.org was registered.
2008-10-31 ~ Bitcoin White Paper Day: The
White Paper,
titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” was
published by an anonymous cryptographer named Satoshi
Nakamoto on metzdowd.com, the cryptography mailing list.
2009-01-03 ~ Bitcoins Birthday: The Bitcoin network was
launched, when Satoshi mined the Genesis block.
2009-01-12 ~ The first bitcoin transaction took place, when Hal
Finney received ten bitcoins from Satoshi as a test send.
2009-10-05 ~ Birth of the first bitcoin exchange, The New
Liberty Standard (NLS), with a listed market price of $0.00764
per coin.
2009-10-12 ~ "Found the first known bitcoin to USD
transaction from my email backups. I sold 5,050 BTC for $5.02
on 2009-10-12." - Martti Malmi, bitcointalk.org founder, sold
bitcoin to NewLibertyStandard who started the first exchange.
2010-05-22 ~ Bitcoin Pizza Day: The first known occurrence of
bitcoin being used to buy a good or service, when Lazslo
Hanyecz paid 10,000 bitcoin for two Papa Johns pizzas!
2010-12-12 ~ The last time that Satoshi posted on the
bitcointalk.org forum.
2011-02-11 ~ Bitcoin reaches parity with the US Dollar for the
first time.
2011-06-14 ~ Wikileaks begins accepting donations in bitcoin.
2017-03-03 ~ Bitcoin reaches parity with an ounce of gold.
2021-08-21 ~ First Annual Bitcoin Infinity Day suggested by
Knut Svanholms meme:
Everything divided by 21 million.
2
0
21-09-07 ~
E
l S
a
lv
a
d
or
b
ecomes the first country to make
bitcoin legal tender.
T
h
e
S
i
m
plest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
133
that was just the start…
here are more
RESOURCES FOR THE RESOURCES FOR THE
RABBIT HOLERABBIT HOLE
“Curiouser and curiouser!” said Alice
MOVIESMOVIES
You can find these movies on YouTube or Rumble.
BITCOIN MOVIES:BITCOIN MOVIES:
@MaxDeMarco and @GetBasedTV on YouTube
Bitcointv.com
Dirty Coin: A Bitcoin Mining Documentary (2024)
Immutable Democracy: film.simpleproof.com (2023)
The Great Reset and the Rise of Bitcoin (2022)
A Sly Roundabout Way: aslyroundaboutway.com (2022)
Where Did Bitcoin Come From
(2021)
This Machine Greens (2021) About Bitcoin & Energy
Bit X Bit: In Bitcoin We Trust (2018)
Bitcoin Big Bang (2018) About the 2014 Mt Gox hack
Magic Money: The Bitcoin Revolution (2017)
Banking on Bitcoin (2016)
Deep Web (2015) About Silk Road & Ross Ulbricht
Bitcoin: The End of Money as We Know It (2015)
The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin (2014)
Bitcoin in Uganda (2014)
FIAT MONEY SYSTEM MOVIES:FIAT MONEY SYSTEM MOVIES:
How is Money Created (2020)
Hidden Secrets of Money - Mike Maloney (2013-18)
Who Controls All of our Money? (2017)
How the Economic Machine Works - Ray Dalio (2013)
Inside Job (2010) - Events leading up to 2008 crash
The Money Masters (1996)
134
BOBOOKOKSS
On Bitcoin:
Layered Money by
Nik Batia
21 Lessons
by
DerGigi
The Bullish Case for Bitcoin
by
Vijay Boyapati
The Bitcoin Standard
by Saifedean Ammous
Inventing Bitcoin
by
Y
an Pritzker
Check
Y
our Financial Privilege
by
Alex Gladstein
Why Buy Bitcoin by Andy Edstrom
Bitcoin Audible: Guy Swann reads Bitcoin books
The Bitcoin Dictionary by Ansel Lindner
The Genesis Book by Aaron van Wirdum
Gradually, then Suddenly
by Parker Lewis
Cryptosovereignty
by Eric Cason
The Price of Tomorrow by Jeff Booth
Broken Money by Lyn Alden
The Fiat Standard by Saifedean Ammous
The Hidden Cost of Money by Seb Bunney
Shells to Satoshi by D Heikkinen and J Marquez
The Sovereign Individual by Davidson & Rees-Mogg
POPODDCASCASTTSS
Listen on Fountain app to stream sats to hosts!
If not yet on Fountain, find these on Spotify and iTunes.
Citadel Dispatch with Matt Odell
Bitcoin Rapid Fire with John Vallis
Stephan Livera Podcast with Stephan Livera
Coin Stories
with Natalie Brunell
Access Tribe's Bitcoin Podcast with Krista Edmunds
The Bitcoin Standard Podcast with Dr S. Ammous
Once Bitten with Daniel Prince
Rabbit Hole Recap with Matt Odell and Marty Bent
Bitcoin for Peace with DJ Valerie B Love
On Fiat, Monetary History and more:
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
Resources for the Rabbit Hole
The Bitcoin Matrix with Cedric Youngelman
Bitcoin Fixes This with Jimmy Song
Orange Pill Podcast with Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert
What Bitcoin Did with Peter McCormack
Bitcoin Audible Guy Swann reads books/articles
FREE COURSESFREE COURSES
My First Bitcoin - Bitcoin Curriculum
Saylor Academy - Bitcoin for Everybody
Looking Glass Education - Money & Bitcoin Courses
Nakamotoinstitute.org
Bitcoin-only.com
Bitcoin Wiki - En.bitcoin.it
WhyBitcoinOnly.com
Wtfhappenedinfeb2023.com
Lopp.net
Casebitcoin.com
Bitcoiner.guide
Bitcoin.tv
Learnmeabitcoin.com - Great simple btc tech explainer!
Hope.com
Bitcoin-resources.com
Myfirstbitcoin.io (Available in Spanish too)
Whatisbitcoin.com
SatoshisJournal.com
github.com/bitcoin
PlayShamory.com - Toys, games & books incl.
Satoshi Nakamoto & His Bitcoin Invention
Bitcoin Money By Michael Caras
Bitcoin Trading Cards - btc-tc.com
Bitcoin Kids Comic Book by Nzonda Fotsing Sr
Hodl Up - Bitcoin Mining Board Game
21 Bitcoin Lessons - freemarketkids.com
What is Bitcoin? - @TuttleTwins on YouTube
134
136
BT ~ BITCOIN TWITTERBT ~ BITCOIN TWITTER
Some cypherpunks
, geniuses, goats & wild ones to follow!
Through these accounts, you will
find 1000's of plebs
and other deep thinkers,
all on the journe
y
.
BT
, along with bitcointalk.org and Reddit, has largely been
where this experiment has grown,
and now joined by Nostr,
the decentralized communication protocol,
all unfurling in real time, across time and space,
in the ethers of cyberspace, connected to the physical,
through all of us,
humans,
sharing a vision of a decentralized world.
Then there are the quieter ones, developers working
behind the scenes
without whom
none of this would be possible.
All of us
together,
unleashed,
as bitcoin was unleashed upon us,
a blessing beyond measure.
TOPICS INCLUDE
: Bitco
in, Proof-of-W
ork, Privac
y
, Philosoph
y
,
Monetary
History, Code, Bitcoin Mining, Sociology, Game
Theory, Austrian Economics, Bitcoin Education, Lightning
Network, Regulatory Environment, Bitcoins Energy Use,
Core Devs, Bitcoin Communities, Bitcoins Future and more.
Be warned: It helps to have a somewhat thick skin on twitter,
and know this, there is a lot of passion in defense of
bitcoin. Keeping a clear line between it and all the
altcoins takes work. Maintaining the clarity, security and
purity of the only truly sound money the world has ever
known is critical, if we are to have a chance in these times
a’coming.
T
h
e Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
137
Resources for the Rabbit Hole
Adam Back - @adam3us
Allen Farrington - @allenf32
Anil - @anilsaidso
Anita Posch - @AnitaPosch
Arman the Parman - @parman_the
Beautyon - @Beautyon_
Bitcoin Q+A - @BitcoinQ_A
BTC Sessions - @BTCsessions
BTC Times - @btc
Brandon Quittem - @Bquittem
D++ - @D_plus__plus
Daniel Batten - @DSBatten
Daniel S Pico - @BTCGandalf
Deterministic Optimism - @nvk
Efrat Fenigson - @efenigson
Erik Cason - @Erikcason
Giacomo - @giacomozucco
Gigi - @dergigi on Nostr
Guy Swann - @TheGuySwann
Jack - @jack on Nostr
Jameson Lopp - @lopp
Jeff Booth - @JeffBooth
Jimmy Song - @jimmysong
Knut Svanholm - @knutsvanholm
Luke Dash Jr - @LukeDashjr
Lyn Alden - @LynAldenContact
Marty Bent - @MartyBent
Matt Odell - @ODELL on Nostr
Mechanic - @GrassFedBitcoin
Michael Saylor - @saylor
Natalie Brunell - @natbrunell
Natalie Smolenski - @NSmolenski
Nick Szabo - @NickSzabo4
Nik Bhatia - @timevalueofbtc
Parker Lewis - @parkeralewis
Pavlenex - @pavlenex
Pleb Lab - @PlebLab
Preston Pysh - @PrestonPysh
Seb Bunney - @sebbunney
Tomer Strolight - @TomerStrolight
Troy Cross - @thetrocro
Vijay Boyapati - @real_vijay
Thank you all for teaching me every day!
138
COMMUNITY COMMUNITY
PROJECTSPROJECTS
Below are some of the grassroots projects around
the world that are working to educate and create a
local economy with bitcoin.
Follow them on Nostr or Twitter to learn more or to
donate:
Bitcoin Beach El Zonte - El Salvador - @Bitcoinbeach
Bitcoin Ekasi - South Africa - @BitcoinEkasi
Bitcoin Beach Brazil - Brazil - @BitcoinBeachBR
Bitcoin Jungle - Costa Rica - @BitcoinJungleCR
Bitcoin Venezuela - Venezuela - @btcven
Bitcoin Bay - Florida, USA - @bitcoinbaytpa
Bitcoin Lake - Lake Atitlan - @LakeBitcoin
Bitcoin House Bali - Indonesia - @btchousebali
7 Mile Bitcoin - Cayman Islands - 7milebitcoin.org
Bitcoin Kampala - Uganda - @BitcoinKampala
Bitcoin Retreat - Phillipines - @BtcRetreat
Bridge2Bitcoin - UK - @Bridge2Bitcoin
Bitcoin Berlin - El Salvador - @BitcoinBerlinSV
Harlem Bitcoin - New York, USA - @HarlemBitcoin
F.R.E.E Madeira - Portugal - @FREEMadeiraOrg
Bitcoin Valley - Rovereto, Italy
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
139
INDUCED INDUCED
PONDERINGSPONDERINGS
Shout out to
Satoshi
and all the
orange-pilled
dreamers
seers
cypher punk wizards
poets for freedom
keepers of wisdom
sovereign individuals
hodlers of last resort
fearlessly forging forward
alone together
for freedom
Vires In Numeris!
140
A RABBIT HOLE PONDERINGA RABBIT HOLE PONDERING
Bitcoin is really a rather fascinating ‘thing’
Except it is not a ‘thing’
In the sense that you cannot touch it
Yet it is touching millions of us
Around the world
Soon to be billions..
It is true that
It is digital bits and bytes
Algorithms and code
0s and 1
s
And that if every single node
Archival node, pruned node and light node
Were somehow
Destroyed
It would no longer exist
In the way we know it
Are able to perceive it..
It would, however, still ‘exist’
In the sense that quantum physics
Or gravity
Exists
Regardless of human perception..
In the sense that mathematics existed
Before humans codified it
Chose symbols to represent it..
Truth
Does not need us
The S
implest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
141
Induced Ponderings
WHY WILL ALL VALUE ACCRUE WHY WILL ALL VALUE ACCRUE
TO BITCOINTO BITCOIN
There are some interesting game theories that appear
to converge when it comes to bitcoin, making the
likelihood of it’s growth and increased value over time
more and more certain.
SCHELLING POINTSCHELLING POINT
Introduced in the 1960s by the American economist,
Thomas Schelling, the Schelling point basically asserts
that people who cannot necessarily communicate
with one another, can still converge on a decision
or course of action, especially when a compelling
solution to a problem presents itself (-> bitcoin)
In addition, as more people are drawn to the Schelling
point, it attracts ever more people (-> bitcoin)
LINDY EFFECTLINDY EFFECT
In essence, the Lindy Effect states that the longer an
idea, a technology or a business has been around,
the longer it is likely to endure.
METCALFE’S LAWMETCALFE’S LAW
Popularized by Robert Metcalfe, who invented
Ethernet, among other things. Metcalfes law states
that a network becomes proportionally more valu-
able the more users it has. Utility increases exponen-
tially as more and more users join, strengthening
the network.
142
THE P2P NETWORKTHE P2P NETWORK
It is a global distributed database, with
additions to the database by consent of
the majority...
~ Satoshi Nakamoto 2009-02-18
Global reachable Bitcoin Nodes distribution, June 2024
The result is a distributed system with
no single point of failure. Users hold
the crypto keys to their own money and
transact directly with each other, with
the help of the P2P network to check for
double-spending.
~ Satoshi Nakamoto 2009-02-11
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
143
Induced Ponderings
BITCOIN, BITCOIN,
NONVIOLENT COMMUNICATION NONVIOLENT COMMUNICATION
& PERMACULTURE& PERMACULTURE
I see Bitcoin, brought to us by Satoshi Nakamoto, as being
the foundation layer for a healthy society with regards to:
communicating value
transacting and exchanging
storing our time/life energy
in an emergent, organic, honest unfolding.
I see Nonviolent Communication, brought to us by Marshall
Rosenberg PhD, as the foundation layer for a healthy society
with regards to:
communicating feelings and needs
deep listening, empathy
finding co-creative solutions
in an emergent, organic, honest unfolding.
I see Natural Farming and Permaculture, brought to us by
our Ancestors, and more recently, Masunobu Fukuoka and Bill
Mollison as being the foundation layer for a healthy society
with regards to:
communication with the earth
growing food, healing the soil
tending the wild
in an emergent, organic and honest unfolding.
144
Each of these technologies, one mathematical, taking
us beyond mathematics, one linguistic, taking us beyond
language, one biological, taking us beyond biology, are
based in Truth.
It is up to us to make use of them, to live into them, and
to allow them to guide us deeper and deeper into the
profound potential we feel tingling at the tip of
our perception.
May we find the courage, the strength,
the wisdom and the grace
to move forth fearlessly
on the journey.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
145
A Cypherpunk’s ManifestoA Cypherpunk’s Manifesto
by Eric Hughes
Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age.
Privacy is not secrecy. A private matter is something one
doesn’t want the whole world to know, but a secret matter
is something one doesn’t want anybody to know. Privacy is
the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world.
If two parties have some sort of dealings, then each has
a memory of their interaction. Each party can speak about
their own memory of this; how could anyone prevent it? One
could pass laws against it, but the freedom of speech, even
more than privacy, is fundamental to an open society; we
seek not to restrict any speech at all. If many parties speak
together in the same forum, each can speak to all the others
and aggregate together knowledge about individuals and
other parties. The power of electronic communications has
enabled such group speech, and it will not go away merely
because we might want it to.
Since we desire privacy, we must ensure that each party to
a transaction have knowledge only of that which is directly
necessary for that transaction. Since any information can be
spoken of, we must ensure that we reveal as little as possible.
In most cases personal identity is not salient. When I purchase
a magazine at a store and hand cash to the clerk, there is no
need to know who I am.
When I ask my electronic mail provider to send and receive
messages, my provider need not know to whom I am speak-
ing or what I am saying or what others are saying to me; my
provider only need know how to get the message there and
how much I owe them in fees. When my identity is revealed
by the underlying mechanism of the transaction, I have no
privacy. I cannot here selectively reveal myself; I must always
reveal myself.
146
Therefore, privacy in an open society requires anonymous
transaction systems. Until now, cash has been the primary
such system. An anonymous transaction system is not a
secret transaction system. An anonymous system empow-
ers individuals to reveal their identity when desired and only
when desired; this is the essence of privacy.
Privacy in an open society also requires cryptography. If I say
something, I want it heard only by those for whom I intend it.
If the content of my speech is available to the world, I have
no privacy. To encrypt is to indicate the desire for privacy,
and to encrypt with weak cryptography is to indicate not too
much desire for privacy. Furthermore, to reveal ones identity
with assurance when the default is anonymity requires the
cryptographic signature. We cannot expect governments,
corporations, or other large, faceless organizations to grant
us privacy out of their beneficence
It is to their advantage to speak of us, and we should expect
that they will speak. To try to prevent their speech is to fight
against the realities of information. Information does not just
want to be free, it longs to be free. Information expands to fill
the available storage space. Information is Rumors younger,
stronger cousin; Information is fleeter of foot, has more eyes,
knows more, and understands less than Rumor.
We must defend our own privacy if we expect to have any.
We must come together and create systems which allow
anonymous transactions to take place. People have been
defending their own privacy for centuries with whispers,
darkness, envelopes, closed doors, secret handshakes, and
couriers. The technologies of the past did not allow for strong
privacy, but electronic technologies do.
We the Cypherpunks are dedicated to building anonymous
systems. We are defending our privacy with cryptography,
with anonymous mail forwarding systems, with digital signa-
tures, and with electronic money.
A
Cypherpunk’s Manifesto
147
A Cypherpunks Manifesto
Cypherpunks write code. We know that
someone has to
write software to defend privacy, and since we can’t get
privacy unless we all do, we’re going to write it. We
publish
our code so that our fellow Cypherpunks may practice and
play with it.
Our code is free for all to use, worldwide. We don’t much
care if you don’t approve of the software we write. We
know that software can’t be destroyed and that a widely
dispersed system can’t be shut down.
Cypherpunks deplore regulations on cryptography, for
encryption is fundamentally a private act. The act of
encryp-tion, in fact, removes information from the public
realm. Even laws against cryptography reach only so far as a
nations bor-der and the arm of its violence.
Cryptography will ineluctably spread over the whole globe,
and with it the anonymous transactions systems that it
makes possible.
For privacy to be widespread it must be part of a social
con-tract. People must come and together deploy these
systems for the common good. Privacy only extends so
far as the cooperation of ones fellows in society. We the
Cypherpunks seek your questions and your concerns and
hope we may engage you so that we do not deceive
ourselves. We will not, however, be moved out of our
course because some may disagree with our goals.
The Cypherpunks are actively engaged in making the net-
works safer for privacy. Let us proceed together apace.
Onward.
Eric Hughes <hughes@soda.berkeley.edu>
9 March 1993
(Emphasis in bold is mine)
148
SOME OF THE EARLY CYPHERPUNKSSOME OF THE EARLY CYPHERPUNKS
we can thank for contributing to the
development of digital peer-to-peer cash
Satoshi Nakamoto - Anonymous cypherpunk who
introduced bitcoin to the world in 2009.
Nick Szabo - Bit Gold 2005
Hal Finney - 2004 Reusable Proof of Work (RPoW),
Author of PGP 2.0. Second person to run the bit-
coin client. Received the first bitcoin transaction
of 10 bitcoins from Satoshi Nakamoto
Wei Dai - B-money 1998
Dr Adam Back - HashCash 1997 - CEO
Blockstream
Douglas Jackson and Barry Downey - E Gold
1996
John Gilmore
Timothy C.May
Eric Hughes
Philip Zimmermann: 1991 PGP 1.0, the most
widely used email encryption in use.
David Chaum - Ecash 1983 and DigiCash 1989
}
Founders of the Cypherpunk
movement and mailing list in 1992.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
149
The The
WhitWhite Pe Papaperer
Presented to the world on metzdowd.com
2008-10-31
by Satoshi Nakamoto
A pseudonymous cypherpunk, who last communicated
with the cypherpunk community on the bitcointalk.org
forum on 2010-12-10.
By leaving, he allowed Bitcoin to be a true experiment in
the wild. Everyone who works on it is a volunteer in some
sense <-> inspired by the potential of freeing humanity
from the shackles of a manipulated, debt-based money
system, and instead, participating in a global, trustless,
permissionless, censorship-resistant, truly scarce, peer-to-
peer, decentralized money and monetary payment net-
work, that is inspiring an emergent order to rise out of the
fiat ashes
We are all Satoshi
The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink
of second bailout for banks
~ Text of a headline from The Times of London,
etched into the Bitcoin Genesis block by Satoshi
Nakamoto on 2009-01-03
150
151
The White Paper
152
153
The White Paper
154
155
The White Paper
156
157
The White Paper
158
159
The White Paper
Bitcoin Genesis Block ~ Raw Hex Version Bitcoin Genesis Block ~ Raw Hex Version
2009-01-032009-01-03
and so,
a new era,
was unleashed
One could pass laws against it, but the freedom of
speech, even more than privacy
, is fundamental to an
open society; we seek not to restrict any speech at all.
TL;DR: nostr is a protocol that has the power to
replace twitter, Telegram, and other things.
~ Eric Hughes, The Cypherpunk's manifesto, 1993
~ @dergigi
nostr is to freedom of communication
as bitcoin is to freedom of transaction.
Nostr is a simple, decentralized protocol for
censorship-resistant, global, interoperable networks.
Nostr does not rely on a trusted central server.
It is a free and open source (FOSS) software protocol,
like Bitcoin, HTTP or TCP-IP, which allows anyone to
build on nostr.
It is how we retain our freedom to communicate
with anyone, anywhere with an internet connection.
~ Keysa @SimplestBitcoinBook
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
160
(it is) a communications protocol with a
self-sovereign identity layer...
and nostr is also more than that.
~ @dergigi
We need nostr because the current communication
systems and social media platforms are centralized.
This is problematic because these systems:
Have the power to censor your speech.
Are vulnerable to regulatory attacks by the state.
Can choose, or be told, to suspend or delete your
account.
Can be hacked, and thus compromise your data.
Use algorithms to feed you the information they want
you to see.
Manipulate every aspect of your experience on them.
Track all your activity.
Harvest and sell your data.
Use your data to litter your feed with advertisements.
Freedom tech is hope.
~ @ODELL
161
WHY WE NEED NOSTR
Nostr has two parts: Clients and Relays.
A CLIENT is an INTERFACE (app or website) that is run
on the nostr protocol.
It is where you see the notes that you and the people
you follow post (in the same way that twitter is an
interface where you post and read notes by others,
except twitter is centralized & it censors posts.)
A RELAY is a SERVER and a DATABASE. Anyone can
run a relay, which is what makes nostr decentralized.
It is where your notes are sent, stored and retrieved
from by clients.
There are many relays and you can choose which ones
to connect to. Some are free and some are paid.
When you post a message, it is broadcast to the relays
you are connected to.
The clients query the relays they are connected to, and
then they populate the messages being hosted by
those relays.
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
162
~
@BTCillustrated
When you open your nostr client, you will see all the
notes posted by you and those you follow in
chronological order.
There are no algorithms deciding what to show you,
what to withhold from you, or censoring your posts.
Like Bitcoin, nostr uses public/private key pairs.
PUBLIC KEY = npub, like a username
PRIVATE KEY = nsec, like a password
163
HOW DOES NOSTR WORK?
NOTE: Your private key cannot be reset if
lost, so you must secure it well!
If you leak your private key, whoever has
access to it has access to your nostr
account, and there is no way to regain
sole access.
Anyone can run a relay. A relay is very simple and
dumb. It does nothing besides accepting posts
from some people and forwarding to others.
Relays don’t have to be trusted.
Signatures are verified on the client side.
~ @fiatjaf, 2019-11-02 fiatjaf.com/nostr.html
164
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
Once you have your nostr key pair, you can log into any
nostr client with those same keys, and you will see that
you retain your identity and followers/following lists
on all the clients.
This differs from legacy social media, where you need a
separate account, username and password for each
platform, and you have different content, follows and
followers on each one.
You can create a human-readable username using
N
IP-05. For example:
My Public Key, or npub is:
npub1dpna3xwwddnhhzg9ycpvlcz2ze0jdwm2rf3eqd2lf9leaewtq7tqhw0ef2
My NIP-05 Nostr address is:
SimplestBitcoinBook@nostrplebs.com
You can search for people on nostr by entering their:
npub
NIP-05 (aka nostr address) if they have one
Username from NIP-05 -> @SimplestBitcoinBook
Get
a NIP-05 Identifier here:
nostrplebs.com
verified-nostr.com
getalby.com
Or set one up with your own domain
At it's most basic level, Nostr is a communication
protocol that acts as the social glue that binds
all of your apps together.
~ derekross@nostrplebs.com
165
1.
Choose a client app to download. (It doesn't matter
which one you select, as you can try them all out once
you have your key pair generated.)
2.
Popular Client Examples:
Damus on iOS
Amethyst on Android
Primal on iOS/Android/Desktop
3.
Create a User Name. No other info is needed.
4.
The app will generate the account.
5.
You can add a profile picture and banner if you like.
6 .
Your account will automatically connect to a few
relays once you select at least one interest (eg:
bitcoin, art, human rights, sports, music etc)
7.
Depending on the client, it will automatically follow a
few accounts with a similar interest, or let you select a
few.
8.
You can then add or remove relays and accounts.
~
@BTCillustrated
166
Once your keys have been generated, it is time to
inst
all a signing extension.
When you want to log in to a website running on the
nostr protocol, it will ask for your nsec, or private key.
DO NOT enter it directly, as websites can leak data.
Instead, always use a signing extension.
This is a tool which stores your private key, and you
authorize it to sign events, such as notes, on your
behalf. Don't worry, this is simpler than it sounds!
Popular signing extensions:
Nostore (iOS Safari)
Amber (Android)
Nsec App (Mobile/Desktop)
Alby (
Desktop)
Nos2X (Desktop)
Nostr Connect (Desktop
)
Zapping is how we bitcoin on nostr! Creating a V4V
(Value4Value) economy, note by note, zap by zap.
You can send and receive sats (aka zaps) for notes or
content you appreciate by connecting a Bitcoin
Lightning wallet to your nostr account.
There are various ways to do this. If the client you
choose doesn't walk you through it, just ask on nostr
with the #asknostr tag, and someone will guide you.
Nostriches are friendly!
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
nostr-resources.com by @derGigi
nostr.com by @fiatjaf
nostr.net by @aljaz
nostr.how by @JeffG
usenostr.org by @pluja
benwehrman.com/nostr-guide by @benwehrman
nostrapps.com by @Karnage
167
Below is a list of websites that have excellent, easily
digestible guides on nostr and it's wonders!
The
Nostrich Origin Story
by Walker@primal.net
December 16, 2022:
I discovered ChatGPT3 and,
naturally, asked it
Can you write a joke about #nostr?”
ChatGPT3 responded:
Q: What do you call a nosy ostrich?
A: A nosTrich!
The joke wasn’t great, but you can’t blame a bot. Regardless, I
loved the idea of a visual identity for nostr, and ostriches are
cool birds. So I took to Midjourney and created The #Nostrich
December 20, 2022:
@jb55 proposed the “Nostrich” as the official Nostr mascot
and logo.
Three minutes later, @jack tweets the Nostrich image.
The rest, as they say, is history.
~ @Walker
Nostr Nests - An audio space for chatting, jamming,
micro-conferences, live podcasts.
Plebian Market - The self-sovereign marketplace of the
Internet, powered by Bitcoin & Lightning.
Npub.pro - Make yourself a nostr-based website.
Corny Chat - Live audio spaces.
Wavlake - A music streaming platform that utilizes
Bitcoin's Lightning Network to offer value for value.
Zap.stream - Host your live stream and get sat zaps.
Flare - A client for viewing, uploading, and interacting
with video content.
Blowater - Built to replace Telegram/Slack/Discord.
Stemstr - A social experience for music artists to
connect, collaborate and share amazing music.
Nostr.build - Image, video & media uploader & host.
Hivetalk - Real-time, totally private video calls and
meetings, replaces Zoom.
Zap.cooking - Share recipes over Nostr.
Flockstr - Events and meetup scheduling.
Memestr - View and make memes over Nostr
Quotestr - Make a Nostr note an image quote.
168
Visit nostrapps.com to find these, and so many more
amazing apps built on the free, open-source nostr protocol.
Use your signing extension to sign into them all!
The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written
169
~ @fiatjaf from:
Nostr is still very young. Just like bitcoin, but much
younger, it is a grassroots, messy, global, ground-up
experiment.
If you see the value in a decentralized, censorship-
resistant, open-source communications protocol,
please join us in using it, developing it, offering
feedback to the devs, and participating in whatever
way you feel called, to help grow this free speech tool.
It is an amazing experience to engage in a growing
technology that is built to preserve freedom of speech
and open communication globally.
Dive in and learn along with the rest of us sovereign
souls, embracing the inherent chaos to create beauty,
and to forge a bright future for our grandchildren!
More important than all is that we must keep in mind that
nostr is just a very loose set of servers with basically no
connection between them, ... and the process of keeping
connected to others and finding content must be
addressed through many different hackish attempts. To
write Nostr applications and to use Nostr one
must embrace the inherent chaos.
'A vision for content discovery and relay usage
for basic social-networking in Nostr'
Profound gratitude to Satoshi, Fiatjaf, the cypherpunks
past, present and future, Nostr fam, the BT vortex, the
toxic maxis, the non-toxic maxis, the meme-lords and -
ladies, the believers, the cynics, the seers...
and always,
my beloved family, friends,
and the One who breathes through us all,
for always seeing me through,
more precious than anything, even bitcoin
Free PDF of this book and the translations
available at: thesimplestbitcoinbook.net
Comments, quest
ions, updates, feedback:
thesimplestbitcoinbook@proton.me
Can’t promise I will get to it in a timely fashion ...
might be barefoot on a mountain somewhere
Stack sats
Stay strong
Stay true
in the end, Love
851522
Follow me on nostr: